


And Tell Me, Who Do You Love?

by wickedthoughts



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Barebacking, Blasphemy, Blood Drinking, Bottom Dean, Boy King of Hell Sam, Castration, Choking, Dark Sam Winchester, Demon Dean Winchester, Dom/sub, Dry Orgasm, Dubious Consent, Gore, Hellhounds, Jealousy, M/M, Manipulation, Mark of Cain, Minor Character Death, Object Insertion, Orgasm Control, Possessive Sam Winchester, Rape, Rough Sex, Sam On Demon Blood, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Sibling Incest, Top Sam, Torture, Unrequited Castiel/Dean Winchester, Violence, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-03 23:35:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1759739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedthoughts/pseuds/wickedthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In order to reclaim Dean from Crowley, Sam accepts his place as King of Hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Tell Me, Who Do You Love?

**Author's Note:**

> For an [spnkink-meme prompt.](http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/85012.html?thread=32444692#t32444692) Originally posted there and on my [LJ](http://wickedthoughts1.livejournal.com/1417.html)
> 
> Heed the warnings please. Dark, dark, dark, and even darker. Features, among other things, a non-con castration and a disemboweling rape scene. Seriously, don't say you weren't warned. Sam and Dean are horrible people in this story, and nothing they do here is remotely okay.
> 
> Title from the song "Who Do You Love?" by Bo Diddley.

* * *

 

On his birthday, Anno Domini 2014, Sam Winchester finally killed the demon Crowley, formerly Fergus McLeod, and took his place as King of Hell.  
  
As Sam plunged Ruby’s knife into the protruding gut of Crowley’s meatsuit, twisted and cleaved up to his heart, he thought (I should have done this years ago.) Both he and his brother had waffled on killing the demon, sometimes a useful if reluctant ally. It took Crowley’s attempt to steal Dean from Sam to get the younger Winchester to act once and for all. The last time Sam had seen Dean his older brother had been nothing more than Crowley’s obedient thrall. Sam had shuddered to think what Crowley had made Dean do for him. Not only the killing and the torture, but the other things the demon had always hinted about wanting from Dean. Things that were only for Sam.  
  
All of Sam’s moral dilemmas about accepting his throne melted away in the face of losing Dean. He’d gorged himself on demon blood, wondered how he’d gone so long without the perfect cloying ambrosia as it poured down his throat. Then he’d performed the ritual he’d found to challenge Crowley for Hell. Not many knew of it, but it was binding. Crowley had been forced to respond or else forfeit the throne. Sam named the date, time, and place: May 2nd (Happy Birthday to him), high noon (Dean would have gotten a kick out of that were he in his right mind), at Stull Cemetery (it seemed poetic).  
  
The smug grin was wiped off Crowley’s face as his life was snuffed out in a flash of red light. His meatsuit hadn’t even hit the ground before Sam was turning to his brother. When he saw his Master fall Dean snarled from the ground where he lay sprawled from Sam’s initial attack. Sam’s plan had been successful- incapacitate Dean while he dealt with Crowley first. Crowley had never been a physical threat, it was always Dean that Sam was worried about in this fight. Crowley had controlled Dean’s mind through the brand burned onto Dean’s right forearm. Sam had thought, had hoped, that killing Crowley would release Dean from his control, perhaps even have shifted that control to Sam himself. Obviously it hadn’t.  
  
Dean’s muscles tensed as he crouched to spring at Sam, the First Blade gripped tightly in his hand. He was completely naked and Sam had to fight against the lustful thoughts competing for his attention against his battle strategies. Sam knew part of it was the demon blood that pumped through his veins, but he didn’t care. Dean looked so glorious, his body powerful and vicious. Like the most beautiful animal Sam had ever seen. Sam wanted his brother, was entitled to him. He had just killed the King of Hell, a title that was Sam’s birthright to begin with, and rightfully all of the former King’s possessions, his pets, belonged to Sam now. Apparently Dean didn’t see it that way.  
  
“Dean. Don’t fight me.”  
  
Sam wanted to give Dean a chance to submit to his new King. He owed his brother that. It was a confusing time for the hierarchy of Hell: Lucifer perpetually entrapped, the deaths of Azazel, Lilith, and Alastair, the death of Abaddon by Dean’s hand, and now the death of Crowley by Sam’s. Dean’s brain must be a little addled keeping track. Dean ignored Sam’s warning and lunged for Sam’s throat.  
  
Sam swiftly lifted his arm toward Dean, palm outstretched and fingers splayed. Dean’s assault was halted in midair inches from the hand holding him psychokinetically aloft. He growled and raged as he hung there, spit flying from his lips. The only recognizable words he produced were profanities. The younger Winchester didn’t know what to do. He’d won the throne but lost his brother. He’d been King of Hell less than five minutes and he felt like he was already fucking it up. The demon blood filled his head, mocking his weakness, his impotence, his indecisiveness. How could he rule Hell, keep a firm hand with its denizens, if he couldn’t control Dean?  
  
Maybe that was it. He would take Dean to their new home. He would show Dean who the King was. Sam was sure that he would have to prove himself to most of Hell’s demons and a demonstration of his power could only be good for Dean’s defiant attitude.  
  
The moment Sam unequivocally decided to take Dean to Hell, they were there. The muggy, oppressive heat of the midday Kansas sun became an even more extreme torridity as the dying grass, crooked trees, and cracked tombstones dissolved into the Pit. The Winchesters were in Hell’s throne room, but it looked more like the office of a high-powered executive than the seat of Hell’s Ruler. It was a large room with hardwood floors. A wooden desk with a rounded front stood central and one of those plush ergonomic chairs sat behind it. An impressive folding bar filled the entire left-hand wall, the wall behind the desk was a giant bookcase filled with thick, ancient-looking texts, and across from the desk a huge flatscreen TV took up most of the wall. There were no places for any potential visitors to sit and no apparent doors, but there were two massive windows, thick black velvet curtains drawn, on the right-hand wall. Decorations were minimal; an incomprehensible piece of modern art rested on the desk and the back wall not covered by the television had a painted portrait of Crowley, his outfit, pose, and expression were far too coquettish for Sam to dwell on it for long. Sam’s lip curled in distaste. This wouldn’t do.  
  
The sudden shift in their surroundings had caused Sam to lose his grip on Dean. He crashed to the floor but was up again in an instant, still clutching that donkey jawbone he loved so dearly. He thrust it at Sam’s heart. Here in Hell, his domain, Sam didn’t even have to raise his hand. He simply thought (Go!) and the Blade faded from existence. Nothing was indestructible to Sam here. Dean looked at his suddenly empty hand with seething rage. Before he could attack again Sam made the wooden planks of the floor rise up and enclose Dean in an uncomfortably tight cage. The wood transformed to iron as it moved and Dean rattled the bars with a scream of frustration, forced to kneel in his cramped prison.  
  
“Good, you’re on your knees where you belong. Now be quiet, I have to work.”  
  
With a thought, the walls of the office ripped apart, propelled outward from where Sam stood. They disappeared into the blackness beyond, along with the rest of the former King’s preferred decor. It was just Sam and Dean in utter darkness. Dean hissed in confusion and fear at the unexpected change.  
  
“Let there be light.”  
  
Sam mocked the God he’d foolishly prayed to all those years. God was dead or God didn’t care and both those options were so damn freeing. Sam Winchester had been created for this by demons and angels having a cosmic dick-measuring contest. God didn’t have any say in the matter. Light from an indeterminable source flooded the throne room. It was now in the form of an immense cave, hundreds of feet high and stretching longer than Sam could see in every direction. After a few seconds Sam recognized it as the Hall of Giants from Carlsbad Caverns.  
  
He remembered going there as a kid with Dean, both still young enough to get into the National Park for free. John had been hunting something in Artesia and he’d dropped them off at the Visitor’s Center. Sam had begged and begged his brother to take him, his father to let them go, and they’d finally acquiesced. “You owe me big, makin’ me look at some dumb caves,” Dean had grumbled. But he’d been impressed once they got inside, pretending to be part of a large group of schoolchildren on a field trip. Dean had stared in wide-eyed wonder and he hadn’t teased Sam at all during the tour. Apparently the experience had a bigger impact on Sam than he’d realized. When he’d thought (Awe-inspiring throne room) his subconscious had pulled up massive caverns of rough limestone, jagged stalagmites, and thorny stalactites. But maybe it was too big? Yeah, definitely too big. The Hall of Giants scaled itself down several hundred feet in length. Perfect.  
  
There was one addition to the cavern of Sam’s memory. Against the back wall, central like Crowley’s desk had been, towered a throne composed of pale rock, blades, and human bones. Sam inspected it critically. Sure, it was intimidating, but it was too George R. R. Martin. A little over-the-top. Okay, a _lot_ over-the-top. Did he even really need a throne? He’d get a secondary opinion.  
  
“What do you think, Dean?”  
  
Dean was still hunched over in his iron-barred crate. The expression on his face was similar to the one he’d worn as a child inside the actual Caverns. Maybe a little angrier than he’d been at thirteen, but it still pleased Sam. He was struck with another idea.  
  
“Hold up.”  
  
The preposterous throne, like something from a death metal music video, disappeared. It was replaced by the Impala. Well, most of the Impala. Sam made some quick alterations to the car that had been more of a home to him and his brother than any building ever had. With a thought he sliced the Impala at the steering wheel, leaving the front bench seat exposed, still flanked by four black doors and what remained of the hardtop roof. He left the backseat intact. He’d made too many good memories of him and Dean fooling around back there. And now they had eternity to make even more.  
  
“Okay, what do you think? Good throne, right? Of course, I’m gonna be sitting in the driver’s seat from now on. You’ll have to ride shotgun.”  
  
Dean made an angry noise of protest at the defilement of his car. Sam chuckled.  
  
“Yeah, sorry about that. On the plus side, no more cassette player so we won’t have to listen to your stupid music anymore.”  
  
Dean growled something through bared teeth that might have been actual words. Crowley’s influence was finally starting to fade from his mind.  
  
“You’re gonna have to repeat that Dean.”  
  
Dean’s voice cracked as he raised his volume.  
  
“N-not stupid, Sam. Better than the girly, emo crap you like.”  
  
“There’s my boy.”  
  
Sam grinned, his heart swelling with tenderness. Dean grimaced as he tried and failed to shift inside his cage.  
  
“Not your boy,” Dean spat. “Your King.”  
  
No, that wouldn’t do at all. Sam needed Dean to recognize his authority. His fighting spirit was fine, in fact Sam wouldn’t have Dean any other way, but he’d need to come to Sam’s heel. Sam was King of Hell, Dean was- well, he’d have to come up with an appropriate title for his right hand man.  
  
“Got that backwards, Dean. I’m the King. You? You’re more like my dog.”  
  
“I killed the bitch, I get the job.”  
  
Ah, here was the source of Dean’s confusion. In his power hungry, demon infected mind he’d thought that since he’d defeated Abaddon he’d take her place. He didn’t realize that Crowley had tricked him, used him to reclaim his throne in the aftermath of Dean’s victory. Cain’s Mark had muddied Dean’s brain more than Sam had realized. They were both demon-touched now. There was a time when both he and Dean would have been horrified by what they were arguing over. Those days were done, and Sam was glad for it. The Blood sang in his head, more beautiful than any angelic choir, and the power rushed through what was left of his soul. He loved it, never wanted it to end. And what he wanted, he would get.  
  
“You ganked Abaddon, yeah, but then you let yourself get mind-fucked by Crowley. Not real great leadership material there, Dean. I just gutted that two-faced piece of shit and easily brought you to your knees. Hell is mine.”  
  
“I’m on my knees for now, Sam. Let me out of here, and I promise that will change. You never could beat me in a fair fight.”  
  
“Lucky for me a fair fight’s not in the cards. Look around. I’ve already won. You can accept that, or you can cower in your own filth for the rest of time.”  
  
Dean’s eyes gleamed with that cocky attitude Sam both adored and despised.  
  
“You had to lock me up to beat me, Sammy. You used your bullshit demon hoodoo and barely landed a blow. Who really won?”  
  
“Me,” Sam said, but he was filled with sudden doubt.  
  
Sam was aware of murmurs coming toward them and he whirled to look around his throne room. From the corners of the cavern he could see demons peering cautiously around rock formations. Some of the bolder ones were moving toward the brothers, striding across the center of the Hall. They presented themselves in a variety of ways. Sam saw some that looked as human as himself or Dean, some that had horns or other appendages grafted to them, and some that appeared as monstrous beings of fire or shadow. They were here to pay homage to their new King.  
  
As he watched his subjects approach, Sam realized that there was another difference between the caves on Earth and his facsimile here. The Caverns there had been cool and wet, making his young self shiver in his thin sweatshirt. His Caverns were unbearably hot and dry. Sam found he liked the heat.  
  
“Your majesty.”  
  
The first demon to reach Sam sank to one knee and inclined his head. He looked human, was dressed a bit like Crowley, and his voice was as slick as oil. When Sam made no response he warily raised his head.  
  
“Welcome to Hell.”  
  
The other demons grew braver when Sam presented no immediate danger. They skulked across the broad limestone expanse to join the first demon in genuflection before Sam. The younger Winchester smirked at his captured brother.  
  
“Looks like I win.”  
  
“Right, ‘cause the opinion of the groupies matters so much.”  
  
Sam ignored Dean. He waited for a long time until the multitude of kneeling demons reached what he guessed was several hundred in number.  
  
“Rise!”  
  
They rose as one. Sam had a brief flash of gratitude for the former Queen of Hell. She had trained the demons well during her reign. There was no way Crowley would have inspired this sort of methodical, obedient uniformity. He had been the King of bureaucratic kissassery. Abaddon had been the Queen of pride and militance. What would Sam’s rule be remembered as?  
  
(Your reign will be eternal. You will never be _remembered_ for anything, you will always endure. You are power and you are pain and they will whisper your name with reverent fear forever and ever amen.)  
  
Sam really liked the sound of that.  
  
“I have defeated the pretender Crowley and come to claim my rightful title as King. Do any of you contest this?”  
  
Silence. No demon would dare. Sam smiled.  
  
“Yeah, I fucking contest it.”  
  
Dean.  
  
The black eyes of the assembly were on them. On Sam. Waiting for him to act decisively to put Dean in his place.  
  
“Your objections have been noted, brother.”  
  
“Christ, Sammy, when did you start talking like a Lord of the Rings character?”  
  
The situation was slipping from his control. The first demon to kneel, the one Sam decided to mentally refer to as Oil Slick, spoke tentatively.  
  
“Your majesty. He killed the usurping Knight-Queen. He bears the Mark of Cain. He is the only one who can challenge your rule. You must kill him.”  
  
Sam raised his hand in Oil Slick’s direction, squeezed it into a tight fist. Oil Slick exploded in a burst of bright gore and black smoke. There was a cry from the demon throng. Some of the outliers at the back of the crowd made to flee.  
  
“Anyone who runs will be destroyed. As will anyone else who suggests I kill my brother.”  
  
All the demons froze and there was silence again. Except for Dean’s harsh laughter.  
  
“Listen to Darth Sidious, kids. He means business.”  
  
Sam rounded on Dean.  
  
“Why can’t you just accept the way things are, Dean? Why do you have to make this difficult?”  
  
Dean shrugged, his mouth twisted in a half smile.  
  
“You never make things easy for me, Sam. Guess I’m just returning the favor.”  
  
“I’m trying to save you! I love you, Dean. I need you. I thought you loved me, too.”  
  
“Well, you always hurt the ones you love, right?”  
  
Sam wanted to throttle Dean. Wanted to scream out his frustration until his Caverns crumbled around him. He couldn’t, though. It would give his demon hordes the wrong impression.  
  
“My King.”  
  
This demon was one of the shades. Comprised entirely of dark smoke resembling an androgynous human form. Their voice was simultaneously, paradoxically both high and gravelly. Sam appreciated the way they spoke, nothing like the simpering from Oil Slick.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“I may have a suggestion that will be more pleasing to you. A way to tame your brother without executing him.”  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“Castrate him.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Sam and Dean spoke at the same moment, but Sam was satisfied to hear a note of panic enter Dean’s voice.  
  
“He will remain alive, but he will know his place. What he lacks will be a constant reminder of your power and authority.”  
  
Sam considered the idea. It was horrible, barbaric, and the perfect defining act of his Kingship.  
  
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dean rattled the bars of his cage. “Aren’t you gonna explode Smoky here? How dare he- she- it suggest such a thing, right? Sam?”  
  
Dean was putting on a brave face, but Sam could feel his fear. He made up his mind.  
  
“You brought this on yourself.”  
  
Dean snarled.  
  
“You fucking son of a bitch! If you think- !”  
  
“Careful, Dean. That’s our mom you’re talking about.”  
  
Sam knew he’d decided when he felt the curved blade materialize in his hand, created by his desire. Dean stared at it, face contorted with apprehension and rage.  
  
“If you think I’m gonna beg for you, you’re wrong Sam. And if you think this will make me love you, you’re fucked in the head.”  
  
The cage disappeared and Sam forced Dean to stand, arms at his sides, legs spread. Only his head was unrestrained by Sam’s psychic bonds. Sam ran his hands over Dean’s nakedness, his skin rough and sweaty. His scent, a blend of musk and adrenaline and fear, was the best thing Sam had ever smelled. He wanted to bury his face in Dean, remember that perfume forever. Dean’s jaw clenched when Sam’s hands reached his cock and balls. His soft cock began to fill with blood as Sam stroked it, betraying Dean’s need for his brother. Sam didn’t spend long there. His own cock was engorged, trapped by the denim Sam wore, and it demanded attention. Dean’s attention. Only Dean’s. Forever and ever amen.  
  
“I don’t want you to beg,” he whispered to his helpless brother as he grasped Dean’s balls. “That wouldn’t be you, Dean. I don’t want you broken, I just need you to remember who you belong to. Not to angels or demons. Not to Cain. Not to Crowley. To me.”  
  
“Fuck you!”  
  
“There’s my boy,” Sam repeated fondly. He gave his brother’s balls one last squeeze before he stretched the bulging sac of skin away from Dean’s body. Dean grunted in pain, but said nothing. Sam’s heart swelled with pride at Dean’s strength as he raised the knife.  
  
“I don’t think this will make you love me, Dean. I already know you love me. You’ll always love me, no matter what. Just like I’ll always love you.”  
  
Dean spat in Sam’s face, but Sam saw his eyes acknowledge the truth of Sam’s words. It was enough for Sam. His brother had never been much of a talker, he preferred actions to words. Dean simply had to show Sam his devotion, proclamations of love were only a nice bonus in the grand scheme of things.  
  
Sam brought the knife down, hooked the curve of the blade as close as possible to where Dean’s balls connected with his body. Dean’s eyes never left Sam’s as the new King of Hell pulled the razor sharpness through thin skin and nerve-rich fibers. Dean only screamed once; deep, more roar than scream, full of uncontainable rage and grief and pain. Then he gritted his teeth, the veins in his neck and forehead throbbing with the agony that ripped through his body. It only took one sweep of the knife before Sam was holding Dean’s detached flesh aloft. A few of the demons cackled, hooting and hollering. Sam obliterated every single one of the mockers.  
  
“No. This man is still your better and you will answer to him as you would answer to me.”  
  
Sam cleaned the spit from his face with a thought. He willed the knife and severed testicles out of existence. Dean had been corrected, there was no need to rub his face in what he’d lost. Dean’s eyes remained open, teeth gritted in misery, as he watched his balls disappear from Sam’s hand. Sam released Dean from his psychic hold and Dean crumpled to the floor, eyes finally clenched shut as his hands clutched between his legs and his blood poured out. There was a lot of blood, but that was the thing about Hell. Dean could hemorrhage indefinitely and he would never bleed out. Not unless Sam wanted him to. And Sam had other plans for his brother today. He turned to the androgynous demon of smoke.  
  
“Clear the room and leave us. I’ll call for you when we’re finished so we can discuss the new regime.”  
  
“Yes, my King.”  
  
When they were alone in the throne room, the King of Hell crouched by his wounded brother. He placed his hands over Dean’s, allowed the blood flow to stop, the skin to knit, and the pain to end. Dean slowly brought his hands away from his groin, stared at the sticky redness that covered them. Sam was pleased with his work. There was no scarring; it was as if Dean had never had balls at all. Just a flaccid cock. He was so distracted by his pride and wonder that he didn’t see Dean’s fist coming for his face. There was a burst of pain and Sam found himself on his back with Dean on top of him, arm drawn back to land another blow.  
  
“You fucking- Kill you- I’m gonna-!”  
  
Dean couldn’t even form a cohesive sentence in his frenzied warpath. He punched Sam in the throat and sneered when Sam gasped and choked.  
  
“See how you like it.”  
  
Dean reached down between Sam’s legs, intentions clear, and Sam found the strength to propel himself off the ground and headbutt his brother in the chest. Dean reeled backwards and Sam took the opportunity to push him completely off. Sam scrambled for Dean’s flailing right arm. When he caught it, he turned his body to wrench it over his head and put Dean in an armbar hold. Dean howled as Sam put excessive strain on his trapped elbow and shoulder.  
  
“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!”  
  
“Soul of a poet, huh, Dean?”  
  
Dean’s left arm attempted to reach around and grapple with Sam, but Sam anticipated it. He pressed harder on Dean’s right arm, threatening to break the bone. Dean stopped.  
  
“I hate you.”  
  
“We both know that’s not true.”  
  
And they did. Dean would always love Sam. It was an integral part of who he was and Sam had never been so grateful for it. Sam would always love Dean, too. No matter what they did to each other, they always came back for more. They used and abused each other and neither could get enough. It wasn’t love in the way most people thought of it, but then again, they weren’t like most people. Sam kept Dean in the wrestler’s hold until Dean’s breathing evened out and he stopped struggling.  
  
“Now. Who’s on top, Dean?”  
  
“You,” Dean muttered angrily.  
  
“What was that?”  
  
Sam released Dean and sat back from him. He needed Dean to acknowledge his authority even when the threat of pain was past.  
  
“You,” Dean’s voice boomed in the empty cavern.  
  
“Who’s the King?”  
  
“You.”  
  
Sam stood, shedding his layered shirts and unzipping his fly. Dean remained on the ground, looking up at his brother. His voice was steady and he didn’t cringe in front of Sam. He simply recited the facts of their relationship.  
  
“Who do you belong to, Dean?”  
  
“You.”  
  
Sam kicked off his boots and socks, stepped out of his jeans and boxers. His cock sprang up from its confinement.  
  
“And who do you love?”  
  
“You, Sam. I love you.”  
  
“Good boy. I love you, too. I’ve never loved anyone like I’ve loved you.”  
  
Dean leaned into Sam’s words like a caress.  
  
“Now, on the front seat of the Impala. Hands and knees.”  
  
Dean obeyed. Once more, Sam had to admire the smooth space from Dean’s taint to his wilted cock as Dean climbed onto the passenger seat and bent over. Sam knelt behind him, pumped his own cock a few times. He’d fuck Dean dry today, he’d decided, but he would let his brother come. Sam pushed his way inside Dean without warning, delighting in the burn he felt on his cock inside Dean’s tight, unlubricated hole. He knew the pain had to be so much worse for his brother. Dean tensed at Sam’s intrusion, but made no sound.  
  
Sam fucked Dean roughly, large hands grabbing Dean’s hips hard enough to bruise. With each thrust he made sure to stimulate that sensitive gland inside of Dean. Eventually Dean’s cock rose to half-mast and he began to make little gasps of enjoyment, the mingled pleasure and pain too much for him to handle. When Sam allowed Dean to come he still wasn’t fully hard and he didn’t shoot like he had before. Instead, Dean’s breath hitched and his cock dribbled the last of his viable sperm out onto the Impala’s seat. The sight of Dean’s pathetic release sent Sam over the edge and he cried out Dean’s name as he came. Sam unsheathed himself from Dean, wrapping his arms around his brother’s torso and pulling the shorter man backwards into his lap. He stroked Dean’s cheek.  
  
“That’s my good, beautiful boy.”  
  
Dean sighed. Sam was too tired to try and read any emotion into it. He held his brother on the front seat of the bisected Impala, enjoying the flood of contentment he’d received from his orgasm and staring out at the eerie limestone Caverns he’d created. Everything here was his. Hell was his. Dean was his. He gripped his brother tighter with the thought.  
  
It was good to be the King.

* * *

 

In Hell, dates were irrelevant and time itself had little meaning. On Earth the date was May 9th, Anno Domini 2014, and summer was just beginning in the places the Winchesters would have frequented had they not given in to their darker sides. They had been in Hell the rough equivalent of two and a half years. On Earth it was shaping up to be an uncomfortably humid summer. Luckily, the Pit’s climate was a dry heat.  
  
Soon after he’d indisputably claimed Hell as his own, Sam tore it down to its foundations and rebuilt it to his liking. He razed Crowley’s Hell of Perpetually-Waiting-in-Line and its lackluster dungeons. Sam wanted to create more demon subjects, he had no use for bitter, weary human souls. Back came the hooks and the chains, the razors and the racks. Why mess with what he knew worked? Sam’s Hell was filled with the wailing and teeth-gnashing of the damned. It became once more as the late demon Meg had described. A prison, made of bone and flesh and blood and fear. Sam really liked that turn of phrase; Meg had always had a way with words.  
  
The Cage remained at the center of Hell. Sam had debated whether he should destroy it and its inmates, but his intelligence had beaten his pride. He wasn’t strong enough yet, he could admit that. Someday he would be. Someday he would destroy the archangels who had thought they could play with Sam and Dean like marionettes. Someday, but not today.  
  
Sam did his best to be a good King. Not, of course, in the ridiculous moral sense of the word, but in the practical sense. He ruled with a firm, but fair hand. The majority of the demons were loyal to him, and whether it was out of respect for his birthright or fear of his power, Sam rewarded their loyalty. He hated excessive formalities and groveling. There was no erratic killing of the minions when he was upset, like some cartoon supervillain. The only crime to which Sam applied the death penalty was any sedition that challenged his right to the throne. He’d only needed to execute a few before the rest fell in line. He established a three-strikes policy for minor offenses; demotion and torture were the punishments he commonly meted out for failure. His torture was not inconsequential, but it was always purposeful, always a learning experience. He wanted his demons to love him as well as fear him.  
  
His methods seemed to be working. Demons had started to vie for his favor and it was considered the highest honor to offer your blood for the King’s consumption. Sam’s abilities grew and a new hierarchy was established amongst the horde. At the top, not counting Dean, of course, was the androgynous shadow-being, a demon called Paimonia, nicknamed Pai by Sam. Paimonia served as his advisor in matters concerning Hell’s history and traditions. Sam didn’t trust the demon’s motives, never would, but so far Pai’s knowledge had proven useful. He knew Dean hated that the demon who had essentially gotten him castrated was Sam’s confidant, but Sam didn’t care.  
  
He’d wanted strong demonic representation on Earth, and Sam had requested Pai’s advice to that effect. The demon suggested Sam consider the new leader of the crossroads demons, a demon called Donna. Sam was sitting on what his brother referred to as the “Throne-pala”, Dean seated at his side, when Donna answered his summons. She appeared in the Caverns flanked by two monstrous hellhounds on tight leads. Hell’s dress code had become very lenient, neither Winchester wore any clothes and many of the demons followed their example, but the crossroads demon that stood before them, face masked in shadow, wore a tight black evening gown slitted up to her hip. There was a time, Sam noted with perverse pride, that Dean would have ogled her shamelessly. Now, Dean practically ignored the seductive demon altogether, he was more concerned with her canine companions. Dean eyed them warily as the demon paid brief obeisance to her King. When Donna stood upright she made the hounds sit with a sharp command.  
  
Donna presented herself as a slender young woman with wavy blond hair cascading down to her upper back and eyes of solid red framed with long lashes. Her fancy dress was backless with thin straps running over her shoulders and a plunging neckline that showed off her ample cleavage. Her red stiletto pumps had to be at least four inches high. All of these details Sam noticed in retrospect. The first thing he noticed about Donna when she raised her head into the light, the first thing anyone could notice, was her face. The skin of her lower jaw was cleanly removed down to the bone. Only half of her mouth remained, her red-lipsticked upper lip. Her lower lip was missing as was the underlying layer of her gums. The skin of her cheeks extended to just underneath her earlobes and the skin covering her neck stopped on the underside of her chin. When she spoke the gumless bottom row of her teeth moved surreally, sandwiched between the pale expanses of her remaining skin, and her pink tongue contrasted jarringly with the exposed ivory of her skull. She had a British accent and her voice was charming while giving the impression that whatever she said was an amusing private joke that only she understood.  
  
“You called for me, my Lords?”  
  
Sam had dismissed Pai before answering. He didn’t want his advisor listening in on this conversation. Paimonia disappeared with a noise like ice cracking and left the faint odor of burnt matches in their wake.  
  
“Are you Donna?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Her voice was unaffected by her modifications and it seemed oddly familiar to Sam. He was trying to place it when one of the hellhounds growled. Dean twitched.  
  
“Get those mutts outta here, will ya?”  
  
It was phrased as a question, but it was very much an order. Donna inclined her head in respect to Dean, but when she appealed it was to Sam.  
  
“I can do that, if you wish, but I would much prefer to keep them with me. I raised them from pups and I’m the only one who can control them, you see. They tend to get into trouble if left to their own devices.”  
  
“I missed the part where that’s my problem.”  
  
Dean always got so touchy around hellhounds, reminders of his first trip to Hell under less auspicious circumstances. Sam held up a finger in Dean’s direction and his brother closed his mouth. Sam had finally figured out why he recognized Donna’s voice.  
  
“Bela.”  
  
Only a slight widening of her eyes betrayed Bela’s alarm at being identified. Sam speculated that having just half a mouth would give anyone an impressive poker face. Her hounds tensed and whined, reacting to their master’s sudden disquiet. Dean audibly sucked in a lungful of air as he leaned forward in his seat to get a better look at Bela.  
  
“Yes, you knew me when I was called Bela. That was a long time ago.”  
  
“Not long enough,” Dean muttered. “Hey, nice look for you. Shame they didn’t cut out your tongue, too.”  
  
Bela didn’t respond to Dean’s taunts. She watched Sam cautiously to gauge his response. Sam almost laughed. When they’d known Bela on Earth she’d barely acknowledged his existence, only had eyes for Dean. Here, the roles were reversed. Bela was paying attention to him now. Sam was the one she noticed, the one she cared to impress. Dean was an afterthought. Sam remembered how much he’d wanted Bela, how beautiful she’d been. She still was, even with her mutilated face. Actually, Sam found her more attractive now that she bore the scars of Hell. And he could have her, if he wished. She would do anything for her King, bleed for him or bend over for him. Except, Sam didn’t want her anymore. Not like that. Everything he wanted was already by his side.  
  
What he did want from Bela was her skill. Her cunning and ambition. On Earth she’d done everything in her power to thwart the Winchesters. Often she’d succeeded. During her stint in the Pit she’d risen quickly through the ranks of the crossroads demons to take Crowley’s place as their leader. She commanded two powerful hellhounds. Bela was an excellent choice for a lieutenant of Hell, all she needed was personal incentive and she would do whatever Sam asked. He didn’t even have to break her, she’d already been broken and rebuilt into something glorious. He felt newfound respect for her.  
  
“Dean, shut up. Bela, I summoned you here because I want to discuss my ideas for the crossroads.”  
  
Sam rose from his throne and moved to stand in front of Bela, wanting to speak face-to-face. Bela’s shoulders had visibly relaxed and her hands loosened slightly on her hounds’ leashes. The hounds whimpered and cowered at Sam’s approach. They knew their King.  
  
“Is that something you’d be interested in? A new title? Bela Talbot, Queen of the Crossroads?”  
  
She didn’t argue against the use of her old name. Her name was Bela anew. Her King had given it back to her.  
  
“Yes,” she whispered with a hungry gleam in her crimson eyes. “Yes, your majesty.”  
  
“You may call me Sam.”  
  
Sam reached out with a forefinger and stroked the exposed bone of her cheek. He did it because he wanted to. Because he could. And because he knew it would piss Dean off. He could hear his brother breathing angrily behind his back and it made his cock stir.  
  
“Yes, Sam. Thank you.”  
  
Sam and Bela talked at length about how best to negotiate contracts and acquire human souls. Sam realized he’d been a little unfair to Crowley over his regard for bureaucracy. It was a necessary evil. One that he’d happily let Bela deal with. Dean sat silently and glowered through their whole conversation, vigilantly surveying Bela’s hellhounds, Lion and Freddo. Sam asked their names before he dismissed his new lieutenant. He was thinking about getting a hellhound of his own. He’d always loved dogs. He’d probably name his something less ironic, though.  
  
“You son of a bitch! You treat me like shit in front of Bela? Bela?!”  
  
He was pulled abruptly from his reverie when a strong arm encircled his neck from behind, crushing his trachea and bending him backwards. Sam mentally kicked himself for letting down his guard. Dean sometimes acted up, the Mark and his resulting demonhood consuming him with bursts of white-hot fury. Not as much as he would have if Sam hadn’t altered him, but Sam’s had to wrestle his older brother into submission two more times since their arrival in Hell. The demon blood made it easy for Sam, and Dean knew it, but he still had to fight, had to try, even if he knew it was futile. It was one of the things that made Dean who he was and normally Sam found it endearing. Not now, though. As Sam’s vision blurred he realized that he was low on Blood. He should have had Bela give him some of hers but he hadn’t and now Dean might actually kill him.  
  
“You put your hands on that stuck-up bitch. You let her say your name, and you liked it. You wanted her, Sam. You wanted her!”  
  
Dean bellowed in Sam’s ear, both arms now in play, squeezing Sam’s neck and skull like a vice-grip. Sam’s hands scrabbled unsuccessfully at the arm around his neck.  
  
(Here endeth the reign of Sam Winchester. Too fucking stupid to watch his back. Strangled by his eunuch brother.)  
  
No, he was not going out like this. The last of the Blood surged through him, enough to temporarily release the pressure on his neck as Dean’s arms were pushed away. Sam gasped in lungfuls of sweet oxygen. Why did he even need to breathe here? He’d have to fix that once he’d dealt with Dean’s newest insubordination. But Dean was already resisting Sam’s weak psychokinetic attack. His arms returned to Sam’s neck and Sam wondered if his final display of power had only served to buy him a slower death.  
  
“Dean- get- off!”  
  
“Sorry, Sam, can’t do that. I can’t ‘get off’ at all anymore. You should know that, since you’re the shitbag who cut my fucking balls off!”  
  
Dean humped his withered cock into the small of Sam’s back to emphasize his point.  
  
“I sit around here like your freakin’ concubine while you play with your two-faced little demon friends and I can’t do anything! I can’t fuck, I can’t even jerk off, and I’m gonna fucking kill you for doing this to me. Then I’ll be King and when your soul wakes up downstairs, I’ll be the first thing you see while they tie you to the rack. Three guesses what I’m gonna chop off first?”  
  
Sam was starting to see flashing spots of light in his vision as Dean’s right hand lowered to savagely grope at his vulnerable manhood. Sam desperately dug his fingers into the meat of Dean’s left arm, his fingernails drawing blood, and Sam’s senses were abruptly engulfed with the smell of Dean’s life force and all the power it promised. Dean’s arm relaxed infinitesimally, but it was just enough for Sam to dip his jaw and sink his teeth into Dean’s forearm.  
  
Dean was a special kind of demon, unprecedented as far as Sam knew. Dean was a demon created inside his own meatsuit, soul awakened by the Mark, body activated by the Blade, both combined into the perfect killing machine. With the Blade gone he’d lost some of his power, but he still had plenty, and his blood was the best Sam had ever tasted. Dean yelled and thrashed, but Sam just bit down harder. Every swallow made him stronger and Dean weaker. The Blood filled him, danced through his veins. His head buzzed and his cock swelled. Sam couldn’t believe it had taken him this long to sample Dean’s blood. He’d never had the need, he was constantly besieged by sycophants who kept him happily sated. After tasting Dean, though, Sam was pretty sure he’d never want another demon’s blood again.  
  
With a guttural cry, Dean wrenched his arm away from Sam and fell to the ground. Sam let him go, he’d had enough for now. There was a chunk of flesh missing from Dean’s forearm and Sam spat it on to Dean’s chest, swiping his tongue over the gore staining his white teeth as he smiled at his supine brother. Dean clutched his damaged arm and stared with trepidation at the newly restored King.  
  
“Much better. That’s where you belong, Dean. At my feet.”  
  
“You bastard,” Dean panted. “You fucking bastard.”  
  
Sam made Dean stand, propped up by invisible supports from Sam’s mind. Dean’s hands hung limply at his sides and the blood trickled from his mangled arm to the limestone floor below. Dean’s skin was ashen but his chin jutted defiantly. His eyes turned black, in arrant contradiction to the unbroken symbol tattooed under his collarbone. Sam appraised his brother like a sculptor evaluating his first attempt at carving marble.  
  
“When are you gonna learn, Dean? What else do I have to do to you?”  
  
“I have a suggestion,” Dean growled. “Go fuck yourself, you blood-crazed junkie freak.”  
  
He was going to have to prove another point to Dean. The first time Dean had attacked him, that first day in Hell, Sam hadn’t bothered to punish him. The second time he’d flogged Dean bloody, kid’s stuff as far as Hell was concerned. The third time had been in front of Paimonia and that had required more drastic measures. Sam had disemboweled Dean while the androgynous demon observed. His brother had impressed him by managing to keep quiet while Sam slowly carved out both his intestines, his bladder, his stomach, and his pancreas. He’d only started a low whimpering when Sam reached his liver and he’d finally screamed when Sam started on his kidneys. That was all Sam had been waiting for. He’d restored Dean, as painfully as possible, of course, after dismissing Pai and making his eviscerated brother suck him off. Each regrowing internal organ had been a thousand knives of agony inside of Dean. Sam had held his brother tightly through the healing process, caressing him and telling him how good he was. That had bought him a decent stretch of obedience from Dean, but it seemed that the honeymoon was over. Dean had used up his three strikes.  
  
“How dare you?”  
  
The Caverns rumbled and darkened with Sam’s rage. Dean’s mouth snapped shut.  
  
“How dare you speak to your King like that? How dare you attack me? How dare you threaten me?”  
  
Stalagmites cracked and toppled. Stalactites fell from the ceiling, smashing to pieces where they impacted. Sam grabbed Dean’s face harshly in his large hand, squeezed his cheeks, and yanked down on his lower lip.  
  
“You’re mine, and I will treat you however I like. In front of whomever I want. You would do best to remember that.”  
  
Sam released his brother’s face. He ran both hands down Dean’s chest, taking a moment to trace the superfluous protective emblem engraved there. Dean’s black eyes followed him warily. That uncontrollable, berserk fury that sometimes overtook Dean was starting to fade. Sam felt his own rage dim as well, replaced with a somber resentment. The Hall of Giants settled and brightened slightly.  
  
“If I wanted Bela, I would have her.”  
  
Sam’s hands continued their descent. He skimmed Dean’s firm abdomen; his defined obliques, the small protrusion of his belly that Sam found irresistibly alluring, and down the beginnings of his neat treasure trail. Sam’s cock was painfully hard, stimulated by the Blood and leaking with his desire, and his balls ached for release. He ignored the feeling. Dean could take care of him after he’d been put in his place again. One of Sam’s hands reached Dean’s useless cock and he rubbed the tip between his thumb and forefinger. It didn’t stir. Despite all the blood he’d lost, two spots of pink managed to creep into Dean’s pale cheeks and his brother looked away in embarrassment.  
  
“I don’t want Bela, Dean. Sure, I may end up fucking her, but I don’t want her. You know who I want.”  
  
Dean’s eyes closed briefly. They were green again when his eyelids fluttered open. Sam pressed himself against Dean and kissed him roughly, biting at Dean’s lips and he allowed his brother to get away with biting down on Sam’s tongue when the King pushed it into Dean’s warm mouth. The blood dripped down both their faces as Sam pulled away and healed his tongue with a thought.  
  
Dean looked absolutely wrecked, desperate for Sam’s touch. His eyes were glazed, his lips swollen, and he sagged against Sam’s psychic holds. Sam smirked. He had his brother right where he wanted him. Time to bring the pain.  
  
“It’s a shame that you don’t want me back.”  
  
Dean’s eyes snapped to Sam’s in confusion.  
  
“What? How can you-?”  
  
Sam struck Dean across the face.  
  
“Shut up. You don’t get to speak unless I tell you to.”  
  
Dean’s question died on his lips as if he’d been instantly rendered mute, Sam’s command as effective as any muzzle. It was important to Sam that Dean could speak if he wanted, but would choose not to do so out of his love and his fear of Sam.  
  
“You tried to murder me, Dean. You wanted to kill me and take my throne. If you were any other demon you’d be spread all over this cave right now. But I don’t want that. I need you, Dean. I can’t rule Hell without you by my side.”  
  
His Blood-soaked pride objected to the confession but Sam didn’t care. It was the truth and he wanted Dean to know it. His brother was different from the other demons. The revelation would strengthen his resolve to do better, to be better, for Sam. Dean had been bound to his younger brother since he was four years old and that delicious conditioning was a gift for Sam’s purposes. He sent out a mental “thank you” to their father, wherever he was.  
  
“I have to rule Hell, Dean. It’s who I am, it’s why I was created. So while I’m punishing you here, remember. You deserve this. You left me no other choice.”  
  
“Bullshit, you megalomaniac,” Dean said quietly.  
  
(That’s my boy.)  
  
Sam struck him again.  
  
“I don’t recall giving you permission to speak. Now take my retribution, Dean Winchester, for your crimes against the King of Hell.”  
  
Dean’s body stiffened against the pain that suddenly flooded through his body. It was so excruciating that he bit his own bottom lip in half with his efforts not to cry out, and his blood mixed with Sam’s on his jaw and neck. Sam had decided to let Dean relive the moment of his castration, amplified and on a loop. Dean’s hands went to his groin automatically, frantic to protect what he’d already lost. The first of the moans he was trying to suppress was wrung from his throat. Sam laughed grimly.  
  
“Remember this, brother. Remember the pain and know this. If you ever try to claim my throne, to put your hands on me like that again, or to mutilate me like I did to you our first day here, then I will make the rest of your existence an endless parade of pain and humiliation. I will dedicate my time to devising new ways to hurt you. I will cut off that useless worm hanging between your legs. I will give you the soft, weakened body you’d have had you been deballed on Earth. I will bring Bela’s hellhounds back and I will let those dogs fuck you. While they mount you like a bitch in heat, I will fuck Bela and we will deride you. I will throw you into the Cage and let the archangels you thwarted have their way with you. Do not test me. Do not fuck with me. I am your King.”  
  
Dean groaned.  
  
“That’s- that’s my Sammy. Monologuing like a fuckin’ Bond villain.”  
  
“That’s my Dean," Sam mimicked. “Mouthing off like an insolent child who’s had his favorite toy taken away.”  
  
And he had taken Dean’s favorite toys away. His Blade, his car, his sex. Sam chuckled as he moved behind his brother’s shaking body. He circled his arms around Dean’s torso and tucked his chin into the crook of Dean’s neck. He pressed the length of his hard cock into the crack of Dean’s ass and stroked up and down.  
  
“Have we learned our lesson?”  
  
“Never.”  
  
Sam took the pain away and Dean collapsed, boneless, as far as Sam would allow him. He panted raggedly. Sam stepped back.  
  
“Have we learned our lesson?”  
  
Dean was too exhausted to respond. Sam sighed dramatically.  
  
“Pity. I was considering letting you come.”  
  
That got his brother’s attention. Dean had so few opportunities to get off, only when Sam allowed it. He twisted his head as far as he could to look at Sam, eyes black once more.  
  
“Aw, come on Sam.”  
  
Not begging, just an acknowledgment of his need. His brother was so beautiful like this. Sam found it hard to refuse him.  
  
“Have we learned our lesson?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
There was a bitter edge to Dean’s concession.  
  
“Good boy.”  
  
Sam wet his fingers in the blood flowing from Dean’s left forearm, healing the gaping wound once he’d coated his hand in the viscous red fluid. He slicked up his cock with his brother’s blood, licking the remainder from his fingertips when he was finished. He shoved himself into Dean with no other preparation. Dean huffed out a small breath.  
  
Sam fucked him slowly and deliberately, teasing Dean with irregular applications of both pleasure and pain. He reached around at intervals to pinch at Dean’s nipples and at the head of Dean’s soft cock. He licked the sweat from the back of Dean’s neck, reveling in the salty sting. Was it his imagination, or did the salt burn more than usual? Maybe Dean wasn’t the only demon Winchester, Sam mused. Maybe his own eyes were as black as his brother’s right now.  
  
At Sam’s whim, a massive full-length mirror appeared before the brothers. Sam noted that his eyes weren’t black, just as hazel as they’d ever been. Sam wasn’t quite human anymore, but he wasn’t quite demon either. Sam turned his attention to the actual demon in the room, studied Dean’s face as he fucked him. Dean’s head was tilted to the side, his eyes were closed, and his open mouth was slack. Every so often he’d emit a little groan of frustrated desire. Sam wanted to let Dean climax, wanted to watch his brother’s face as he came in the stunted manner he had left to him. At the same time Sam wanted to deny his brother his release. Wanted to watch Dean’s disappointed face and hear his angry words when he realized Sam was going to leave him ungratified. He still hadn’t decided what he was going to do when a wave of euphoria consumed his thoughts. He watched his face contort in the mirror and he grunted out his essence into Dean. His brother’s eyes opened, black as coal, when he felt Sam’s release. Sam gripped Dean’s shoulders as his rhythmic thrusting slowed in his afterglow.  
  
“Love you so much,” Sam whispered huskily.  
  
“Love you, too.”  
  
It was said with weariness but it was genuine and it made up Sam’s mind. He angled his cock to stimulate Dean and it didn’t take very long until Dean let out a long, gravelly moan. In the mirror, Sam saw his brother’s listless cock twitch and pulse out a few drops of clear fluid.  
  
“Was that good for you?”  
  
Dean nodded his assent, unable to speak as he came down from his orgasm. Sam brought his hands around to Dean’s face and traced his full lips with his fingers, healing the damage Dean had done to himself in his stubborn pride.  
  
“So pretty, aren’t you baby? My big brother, so fucking pretty.”  
  
Sam fucked his brother once more, never pulling out until he came for the second time. The mirror fell and shattered as he did. He released his hold on Dean and led his brother to the Impala, half-carrying the shorter man. He sat in the driver’s seat, placing Dean’s head in his lap and laying his body along the seat. Dean was too tall to fit and his hips turned awkwardly to allow his bowed legs to hang over the end of the bench. Sam lazily combed his fingers through Dean’s hair.  
  
“You’re so good, Dean. I love it when you’re good.”  
  
It was only half true. Sam loved it when Dean was bad, too. He loved everything about his brother. He just _preferred_ it when Dean was good for him. It made things easier. But he knew that Dean’s violence and anger were a necessary part of what he loved about his brother. The bad times served to make the good times better.  
  
“Sam?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Dean was exhausted from the physical and emotional highs and lows he’d gone through in so short a time. No matter how strong he was, he could only take so much mood whiplash. Sam had taken away his pain, but none of his fatigue. He looked up at his brother and his eyes flicked to green.  
  
“Do you- do you ever miss the sky?”  
  
He was asking for himself, Sam knew. Dean would never come out and say it directly, but he was asking Sam for a favor. With a rush of fierce affection he decided that if his brother wanted the sky then Sam would give it to him.  
  
“Close your eyes.”  
  
Dean complied.  
  
Sam closed his own eyes to find the perfect memory. His Caverns disappeared in a flood of darkness. Pinpricks of light appeared overhead. Sam worked silently for a long time. When he was satisfied with his creation he poked Dean in the shoulder.  
  
“Open.”  
  
Dean had to have felt some of the changes as Sam made them, but he gaped for a moment when he opened his eyes to find a vast, clear night sky full of bright stars. He and Sam were clothed in layered shirts, jackets, and jeans. The Impala was whole, parked in a wooded field, and they were spread out on the hood. Dean clambered up to a seated position, giving his Baby a fond pat. Sam pulled two bottles of beer from thin air and offered one to his brother, who took it before he gazed up in appreciation at the horizon.  
  
“Awesome. Thanks, Sam.”  
  
Dean took a swig from his bottle, never taking his eyes off the stars.  
  
“You ever miss this?”  
  
“No.”  
  
It was the truth. Sam didn’t miss anything about Earth, about being human. Earth had been like Hell for him. Hell was his Heaven.  
  
“Oh.”  
  
They drank their beer and sat in silence for a while until Sam broke it.  
  
“You could go back, you know. I mean, you’d still be a neutered demon trapped in your own meatsuit, but I’d let you leave me if you wanted to.”  
  
Sam wasn’t sure if he was lying or not. Maybe he meant it in this moment, when he was being impulsively beneficent after a good fuck. But if Dean actually left him Sam didn’t think he’d last very long before he ravaged the Earth in search of his brother and dragged Dean back to Hell.  
  
“Nah. Where would I go? What would I do without you, Sam?”  
  
Yes, that was exactly what Sam wanted to hear. (Good boy.)  
  
“Hey,” Dean chuckled dryly. “You made everything here the way it used to be. Except, any chance you’d give me back my balls?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Sam was firm. That was the one thing he could never do. The foundation of his Kingship was built on what he’d taken from Dean his first day in front of all those demons. To renege would make him weak. And to be weak in Hell was to be dead.  
  
“Yeah, didn’t think so,” Dean gave that same mirthless laugh. “Can’t blame a guy for trying though.”  
  
“Yes, I can. But I won’t.”  
  
“Well, ain’t you humanitarian of the year.”  
  
(Time to go.)  
  
Sam didn’t want Dean lingering on this train of thought. The starry field became the Hall of Giants, all the rock formations restored from Sam’s previous display of power. The brothers were sitting on the front seat of the sundered Impala, naked and beerless. Dean sighed.  
  
“Back to work, huh? Fine. I’ll just sit here and look pretty for you.”  
  
Sullen resignation filled his tone. Sam was annoyed. He’d thought giving Dean a nostalgic trip down memory lane would be good for his brother, make Dean grateful. Instead, he seemed to be getting even more irritable.  
  
“What do you want to do, Dean?”  
  
“I don’t know. Just something. I’m goin’ stir-crazy.”  
  
Maybe that was it. If Dean had a job, a purpose beyond being Sam’s, maybe he’d stop trying to kill his King and usurp Hell.  
  
“Well, Pai tells me that there hasn’t been a satisfactory head torturer since I killed Alastair. Apparently he left big shoes to fill. If that’s something you’d be interested in trying?”  
  
Dean was a capable interrogator, sure, but Sam didn’t know if it was something he particularly enjoyed. Dean’s preferred method of violence seemed to be of the brutal, hack-and-slash variety. But Dean’s eyes glittered black with his excitement and Sam was pleased that he’d found something Dean fancied.  
  
“Yeah,” Dean tried and failed to hide his enthusiasm. “I think I could get into that.”  
  
“You’ll have to earn the title,” Sam warned. “I can’t just give it to you. Can’t show you favoritism like that just because you're my brother. Or because I’m sleeping with you.”  
  
“Of course,” Dean grinned. “I get it. No- what’s the word? Nepo- nepotism? No nepotism for King Sam. And I can’t get ahead by blowin’ the boss. Even if I’m great at it.”  
  
Sam laughed indulgently. Dean sobered suddenly, struck by a random thought.  
  
“Hey, Sam? You think anyone misses us up there? Think anyone’s lookin’ for us?”  
  
“Probably not.”  
  
Dean hesitated almost imperceptibly, but Sam noticed.  
  
“What about Cas?”  
  
Oh. Him. Sam felt the Blood rushing to his ears. He spent a lot of time not thinking about that name. The only person- being- thing that he’d ever felt threatened by for Dean’s love.  
  
“What about him?”  
  
Dean knew he was treading on thin ice but he pressed on. His big brother really was a sucker for punishment, wasn’t he?  
  
“Do you think he’ll come for us? Try and save us? Not that we need saving.”  
  
He added the last part hastily when he saw the look on Sam’s face.  
  
“Let him come. Fuck him.”  
  
Sam hadn’t even noticed when he’d reached out and clamped his fingers into the meat of Dean’s thigh hard enough to draw blood. He smelled it and was suddenly hungry. He bent his head to suckle at Dean’s leg. Dean’s body barely reacted to Sam’s encroachment.  
  
“Yeah. Fuck him,” Dean sighed, leaning back against the seat of the Impala.  
  
But Sam didn’t really believe him. He clamped down harder, relishing in the way it made Dean squirm. He almost hoped Castiel would come for them. Well, for Dean anyway, Sam had to be honest with himself. Castiel didn’t really give a fuck about _him._ He drank his fill of Dean’s blood, his head swimming with fantasies about what he’d do to that angel if he ever got a hold of him.

* * *

 

On Earth the date would have been May 20th, Anno Domini 2014, when the seraph Castiel stormed the gates of Hell for the third occasion of his long existence, having learned the brother’s whereabouts from Metatron before he executed the traitorous scribe.  
  
In Hell, Dean had flourished as Sam’s Grand Inquisitor. The last of Alastair’s still living apprentices, he used his training to become the most feared demon in the Pit. Sam enjoyed watching his brother work whenever he got the opportunity. The King would go the racks and bask in the screams of Dean’s victims. He was so proud of his brother, Dean’s muscled body naked and streaked with blood and viscera. Dean had a talent for starting human souls on their path to demonhood and all new arrivals were taken to him first. Dean referred to those first sessions as “debriefing,” and they were a process of exquisite style. In his private room, through ritual magicks, the demon Winchester would learn all about the soul. Their identity, their deeds, their loves, their fears, and their secrets. All the better to carry out his tailor-made afflictions. When Dean had all the information he wanted the pain would start. No soul could lie to Dean. The torture wasn’t about getting answers, he already had those. It was about teaching lessons. And Dean was a master teacher.  
  
It warmed Sam’s heart, or what was left of it anyway, to see how Dean had blossomed in the role Sam had given him. He only had minor disputes with his brother now, on those occasions when Dean would get too involved with his job, snarl defiantly at his King when Sam needed him in the throne room. Then Sam would have to remind Dean just which of his duties was top priority. But Dean hadn’t seriously attacked him, nothing more than any hot-blooded older brother blowing off a little steam would do, since the punishment after his third strike.  
  
Today, in between audiences with his subjects, Sam had decided to surprise Dean at his rack for a quickie- a feed and a fuck- before returning to his royal duties. Once he got there he was distracted, however, caught up in the glory of his brother’s artistry. The soul Dean was debriefing was one Scott Larrson, age forty-six when he’d died of lymphatic cancer. Short, scrawny, and balding with greying hair that had once been coppery red. He was untouched save for a bloody gash halfway up his pasty left thigh. He was repulsive looking, Sam thought idly. He briefly wondered what Mr. Larrson had done to land himself in Hell, but then found that he really didn’t care.  
  
The rack that the condemned soul was strung up on stood vertical and Scott hung off it like a slab of unappetizing meat. Dean was standing directly in front of him, a metal rolling tray table with menacing looking tools placed between them. Dean was holding a small, intricately-carved stone basin full of what Sam knew was Scott’s blood. Dean was chanting in some diabolic language, a magnificent invocation in his lilting bass. Sam observed, transfixed by Dean’s voice. By the corded muscles of his back, by the curve of his ass where it met his strong thighs- Sam suddenly remembered why he’d come down in the first place.  
  
Dean placed the basin on the tray as he finished his ritual. Tendrils of Scott’s blood, far too many to count, rose from the stone rim and snaked their way through the air toward the man’s head. Each time one connected with flesh, Scott would writhe and whimper. Not with pain, but with horror and shame. Dean’s fingers danced through the air. They altered the course of some of the red strings and severed others altogether. The arrested strands fell to the ground in streaks of crimson. When he was done, when Scott was sobbing and shaking with lines of blood connecting him to the basin like wires out of a bad sci-fi movie, Dean stepped back. He was breathing heavily, sweating like he’d just run a marathon. Sam realized he’d been holding his breath through the entire process and he exhaled audibly. Not that he needed to breathe anymore, he’d fixed that after Dean had attempted to strangle him, but his body still worked the way it had on Earth. Air moved, his lungs expanded and contracted. It was familiar and he liked it, even if he didn’t need it. He controlled everything here, including his bodily functions.  
  
He and Dean were the only ones in Hell who had retained their original physical bodies. All the other demons had come as disembodied human souls. The way they appeared was their own doing, whether they were conscious of it or not. Newly damned souls would take the appearance they had borne on Earth. The youngest demons usually retained that same appearance, sometimes with the scars of their more memorable torments. The longer their demonhood, the less human they would appear. The older demons would usually become living avatars of shadow, flame, or other aeriform elements. That was just their physical manifestation in Hell, of course. On Earth all demons appeared and operated as black smoke. All demons aside from Dean. The only demon to retain both his Marked, mutilated body and his twisted soul. The only demon unable to change.  
  
(Only if I want him to change.)  
  
“What’s up, Sam?”  
  
Dean turned to his little brother, placing bloodstained hands on his hips and giving Sam an amiable quirk of his lips. His pose was open and confident. Maybe too confident. Sam had the urge to wipe that smile off Dean’s face.  
  
“Well, now that you mention it- ”  
  
Sam let himself trail off and he indicated his cock, pointing towards the ceiling. Dean chuckled.  
  
“Oh, my boy thinks he’s funny, huh?”  
  
“Not trying to be funny,” Sam was getting irritated. “Come here.”  
  
“Wait. I gotta call someone to take over here. Gotta make sure everything goes okay with Scottie’s debriefing.”  
  
A war raged inside Sam between his desire to strike his brother for telling his King to “wait” and the reasonable part of him that assured him Dean had meant nothing by it and was only being thorough at his job. Sam’s jaw clenched and he nodded stiffly.  
  
“Hey, Karna!”  
  
A dark-skinned, elfin young woman with braided black hair and the curled horns of a ram appeared instantly at Dean’s side. She wore nothing but a cotton headscarf that had once been a faded blue but was now mostly a deep carmine. Sam recognized her as one of Dean’s most promising new apprentices. She bent a knee in Sam’s presence, then rose and addressed Dean. Her voice was rich and somehow both discordant and melodious. Sam had long since forgone trying to apply logic to the contradictory natures of Hell’s residents.  
  
“Yes, sir?”  
  
“How many times do I gotta tell you? Not sir. Dean.”  
  
He gestured vaguely at the faintly moaning Scott Larrson.  
  
“Watch this guy, will ya? I gotta take care of his majesty.”  
  
“Of course. Dean.”  
  
Dean moved to Sam and Karna took his place in front of the rack. Sam pushed down on Dean’s shoulders and Dean didn’t resist. He sank to his knees in front of Sam and took his brother’s cock in his mouth. Sam grunted and thrust as far as he could into Dean’s open throat. Dean’s eyes bulged, glistening obsidian pools. Sam couldn’t remember the last time they’d been green. Dean gagged and hummed as he adjusted to Sam’s girth. Once he’d settled into a pleasurable rhythm, Sam ordered Dean to raise his arm. Sam grabbed it, raised it to his face, and dug his teeth into the prominent veins of Dean’s left wrist. Dean spasmed, contracting his lips and throat around Sam, and it sent such wonderful thrills through Sam’s body. Combined with the tantalizing sensation of Dean’s blood it pushed the King over the edge and he came with a deep, shuddering sigh. Dean dutifully swallowed every drop.  
  
Sam’s cock didn’t soften completely. One of the side effects of being as full of the Blood for as long as he had was that Sam was at least half-hard at all times. He didn’t pull out of Dean’s mouth until he’d finished drinking from his brother. He healed Dean’s wrist as it dropped from his grip and Dean fell back on his haunches, panting, hair mussed and lips swollen. Sam almost made him crawl back for a second round- but no, they both had other things to do. When Sam made no indication that he wanted anything more, Dean rose shakily to his feet.  
  
“Thanks, Karna. I got it from here.”  
  
She smiled, a flash of straight white teeth, nodded, and vanished. Sam knew he should leave as well, return to his Caverns, but he lingered. Pai could deal with whatever minor affair was next on the docket. He wanted, needed, to stay. Needed to devour his brother’s beauty with his eyes, and eventually with his hands and his lips and his tongue and his teeth and his everything. He needed to bite at Dean’s lips, to see just how much they would fill out, and to puncture the skin and lap at the red vitality pulsing just underneath the thin membrane. He needed to watch those lips opened in unbridled ecstasy as Sam made him lose control and granted him the privilege of orgasm. It wasn’t something his brother required anymore, but it was something Dean was eager for. Dean was always hungry to recapture his days of potent, unquenchable lust, now gone except for when Sam was inside of him. That power was almost as intoxicating to Sam as the Blood itself.  
  
While Sam was lost in his reverie Dean had moved back to his position in front of Scott. The little man on the rack was still and silent, head lolling to one side as the sinister lines of blood pulsing from the basin did their work. Dean reached out to the left of the stone bowl on his table where a vintage, mint green Bush transistor radio sat. It had been a gift from Sam when he’d appointed Dean to the head torturer position, created from a memory at Bobby’s house. Nine year-old Dean disassembling then reassembling the heirloom while little Sam watched in awe. The old hunter had walked in before Dean finished putting the radio back together, but he’d been impressed rather than upset. Dean had been so proud of himself.  
  
Dean switched on the smooth, blood-spattered little machine that was always attuned to what he wanted to hear at the moment. An epic cacophony of guitars and drums filled the interrogation room, soon followed by the start of James Hetfield’s rough crooning. “Life, it seems, will fade away-” Dean mouthed along with the lyrics and drummed his fingers on the metal tray in time with the beat.  
  
“You don’t find this distracting?” Sam asked loudly over the volume, resisting the urge to smash the radio to bits. Not his favorite genre.  
  
“Nah, actually helps me focus,” Dean peered into the basin to gauge Scott’s progress. “Why, you want something else?”  
  
The harbinger of a fight had unexpectedly invaded their rapport. Sam’s hands clenched into tight fists. Dean was asking out of deference, but Sam could hear an undercurrent of challenge in the question. _After everything you’ve taken from me, you gonna take this, too? You think I’ll just roll over and let you?_ (Fucking right, you will!) Sam screamed at the Dean in his head. That was another, less welcome, side effect of the Blood. Sam’s anger flared up at the slightest provocation. Constantly hot-tempered as well as constantly horny. Not always the best of combinations.  
  
“Sam?”  
  
Before Sam could open his mouth and start something Dean would regret, a massive tremor shook the room. Scott Larrson shrieked and fainted as the rack shook and the tray table fell on its side, the basin smashing on the concrete. The connection was severed and the tendrils dropped from his head. His blood trickled down the floor’s gentle slope to the drain centralized for that purpose. The music stopped when the radio hit the ground amidst a shower of clanging torture implements.  
  
“Aw, shit. Now I gotta start him all over again. He was just getting interesting, too. You shoulda seen what he liked to do to small animals.”  
  
Dean spoke from where he’d tumbled from the assault of the blast. Sam had narrowly managed to psychokinetically stabilize himself from falling over in time. Dean was getting to his feet when a second shock, this one stronger, sent him crashing back on his ass.  
  
“Fine, I’ll just stay here then,” Dean grumbled.  
  
“What the fuck is that?”  
  
Sam’s wrath had quickly switched from Dean and his taste in music to whatever was currently shaking his Hell to its core. His kingdom was under siege from something unknown. He could hear the cries of his demons, could feel their confusion and terror. His subjects’ fear was for Sam, and for Sam alone. How dare this outside force cause such upheaval to what was his?  
  
“I don’t know. Godzilla, maybe?”  
  
No sooner was his quip finished than it was accentuated with another tremor. Sam had neither the time nor patience for Dean’s wisecracking at the moment. The King of Hell closed his eyes, stretched his awareness throughout his realm to find the source of the disturbance.  
  
(Yes, there It is. Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here, the guards of your watchtowers cry out for your aid. Yes, yes. Something’s knock, knock, knockin’ on your door, and It burns so brightly, and It calls out for what’s yours. Little pig, little pig let me come in. It doesn’t know you’re the wolf now.)  
  
Deep down, he’d known this moment was coming. He just hadn’t realized how much he’d been looking forward to it. Sam opened his eyes and grinned savagely. A plan was already forming in his head. It was foolhardy and it could destroy everything he had built here, but it was something he had to do. To sever that last tie to his old life and to silence that nagging murmur in the back of his mind that Dean’s heart, soul, mind, body- Dean’s _everything_ wasn’t completely his. He had to do it, for himself and for Dean. His brother saw Sam’s demented smile and looked up at him with curiosity.  
  
“Wait here,” Sam instructed him. And then he was at his gates. Solid iron and extending farther than the eye could see in all directions, they weren’t real, merely a symbol of the barrier between his domain and the void. They were the only way in or out of Hell, Sam had made sure of that. He’d shut the back doors he’d used to rescue Bobby what felt like a lifetime ago.  
  
The line where the iron doors met was beginning to extend inward. As Sam appeared they shook and dented in further. What sounded like a howling tempest raged in the normally silent void beyond the gates, making the four battalions of demon soldiers standing valiantly between It and Hell tremble like leaves. The soldiers saluted their King as Sam addressed them.  
  
“Open the gates and stand down. No one is to lay a hand on him. Let him come to my throne.”  
  
He could sense the incredulity rippling through the ranks, but none dared question him. Sam returned to the Hall of Giants where Paimonia was holding court in his absence. The shadowy demon immediately rose from the Impala’s front seat and Sam dismissed the supplicant they’d been having an audience with. Oddly, he was no longer angry. His head was clear and all his senses were heightened as he waited for the inevitable showdown. He sat pensively on the driver’s side of the bench, back hunched, elbows on his knees, and fingers steepled. The quaking had lessened once Sam had opened the gates, but it didn’t stop entirely. Every so often a shiver would run through the Pit, a frisson of anticipatory dread as a Holy One walked its corridors in search of its King and his Beloved. Sam focused on hiding Dean from him, on subtly altering Hell to guide the invader to his throne room. Sam needed to see him first.  
  
“What is it, my King?”  
  
Sam didn’t look at his advisor. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, over the tips of his long fingers.  
  
“The angel’s here, Pai. I told the guards to let him in. It was unavoidable, he would’ve found a way inside eventually. He’s a tenacious bastard and he’s always had a knack for screwing things up. We might all be dead very soon.”  
  
If Paimonia was afraid Sam couldn’t sense it. The featureless demon simply inclined their head.  
  
“Do you wish me to stay with you?”  
  
“Yes, Pai, I do. I’d like him to meet you.”  
  
“I would very much like to meet this mongrel of Heaven that troubles my King so.”  
  
“No, Pai. I don’t think you’ll like meeting him at all. I’m gonna be honest with you, I don’t like your chances of surviving this.”  
  
Pai said nothing more. They stood to Sam’s left and waited with the King in silence.  
  
It might have been a little while or a long time later, Sam wasn’t sure, when- _Thud._ The Caverns shuddered and a giant fissure appeared in the wall directly across from his throne. Pai shifted uneasily. Sam sat up straighter.  
  
_Thud._ Showers of rock fell. _Thud._ The fissure widened. _Thud._ It opened, a jagged, gaping maw to the blackness beyond. A figure entered Sam’s Hall of Giants, an eldritch abomination disguised as a man, incongruously small for the immensity of the damage he had wrought on his way inside. Castiel strode brazenly through the distance between himself and Sam’s throne. The limestone floor was rent under his cheap black shoes wherever he stepped, spiderweb veins of destruction before his approach and left in his wake. His new coat billowed around him, similar enough to the one he’d had for so long it had become a part of him, but just different enough to be off-putting. For the first time, Sam could see Castiel’s light spilling through the cracks in the permanently borrowed body he wore. It haloed his face and left a flickering trail in the air behind him. He was beautiful and he was awful and Sam was sore afraid.  
  
(Fear not. You are power and you are pain and It trespasses in your world now and It will bow before you. Be not afraid.)  
  
All at once, Sam could tell there was something wrong with the angel’s light. It pushed against the confines of his body like an ill-fitting suit. The closer Castiel got, the more it rebelled. It spilled out of him like water through a sieve, reluctantly returning like a disobedient child as he called it back. His face was shockingly weary. There were dark circles under his eyes and more lines than Sam remembered there being than the last time he’d seen the angel. His fear began to evaporate and the Blood surged inside him in expectation. Castiel halted about three feet from Sam, scanning the broken Impala, the King, and the demon standing beside him.  
  
“Hi, Cas. Long time, huh?”  
  
“Sam.”  
  
His voice was soft and deep, unadulterated power rumbling through vocal chords that could never hope to express all that he was capable of. He said Sam’s name with sad accusation. Sam licked his lips, baring his teeth.  
  
“I know we’ve known each other for awhile, Cas, but I’m still gonna have to insist that you call me ‘Your majesty’ here.”  
  
Wide blue eyes grew wider. The sorrow in Castiel’s tone overwhelmed his reproach.  
  
“Oh, Sam, no.”  
  
He was almost mournful. Like he was at Sam’s funeral, staring at his embalmed corpse. Sam sneered.  
  
“Oh, Cas. Yes.”  
  
Sam stood leisurely, watching as Castiel tensed. This ancient soldier saw him as a threat. And what a rush was that?  
  
“Come back with me, Sam. This isn’t you, it’s the blood.”  
  
Sam invaded his personal space. Castiel didn’t recoil, but he didn’t push back either. The King and the angel faced off, close enough that if Sam leaned forward slightly he could brush his lips against his rival’s forehead.  
  
“Wrong. This is me. This is who I was always supposed to be. This is who I was created to be.”  
  
“Well, not to split hairs, but you were technically created to hold Lucifer.”  
  
His obstinately literal, self-satisfied tone would have driven Sam crazy on Earth. Here, well, _here_ his Blood boiled. This celestial pawn, this sanctified drone, with his over-inflated ego and elevated opinion of his own worth in the grand scheme of things was underhandedly invalidating Sam’s claim to Hell.  
  
“And you would know? Was that something they told the cannon fodder in your garrison? My life was shaped by cosmic beings in the throes of superpowered temper tantrums. Did anyone ever really know the plan? Was there even a plan at all?”  
  
Castiel hadn’t blinked once in Sam’s presence, but Sam’s probing questions made his eye twitch reflexively and Sam felt like he’d won. He could sense Castiel’s resolve faltering.  
  
(Nothing more than flash in the pan.)  
  
“In case you didn’t notice, Lucifer didn’t really take. Not like the Blood has. I _chose_ this, Cas. I took what you fuckers did to me and I embraced it. Then I made it better. I created myself, I created my own purpose. I’m the closest thing to God you’ll ever meet, and I think you should bow down and worship me accordingly. Or- oh, how did you put it? _Or I shall destroy you._ ”  
  
But he’d pushed too far. Castiel’s eyes settled back into steely determination and Sam remembered that, depleted as he was, this creature was still unfathomably capable.  
  
“I’m sorry, Sam. I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you in time. Now, tell me where your brother is and I’ll let you live out of respect for our friendship.”  
  
“You’re sorry? Where the hell do you get off judging me, Cas? You’re just like me. Only I’m not weak enough, not stupid enough, to give up my power.”  
  
Sam barked with laughter, recklessly playing with fire. The noise resounded throughout his Caverns. He exhaled blood-tinged breath in the angel’s face. He knew he was overcompensating, and he didn’t care.  
  
“You pompous ass. You’re threatening me? I could wipe you from existence with a thought, even if your stolen grace wasn’t draining out of you. You dare call yourself my friend? We were never friends, Cas. We both know that everything you did for me, you were really doing for Dean. Pathetic attempts to get in his pants.”  
  
Castiel looked hurt.  
  
“How can you think that? I care about you, too, Sam. I- ”  
  
“Save your bullshit.”  
  
The angel’s eyes narrowed.  
  
“It’s not bullshit, but very well. Now, I won’t ask again. Where is Dean?”  
  
This was it. The moment of truth. Apprehension coiled in the pit of Sam’s stomach. His head buzzed uneasily. He addressed his advisor without taking his eyes off Castiel’s indignant face.  
  
“Pai. Go tell my brother his angel is here.”  
  
Only the fear of Sam had kept the demon in their spot when Castiel had entered the throne room. Pai was gone like lightning, a sulfurous smell the only sign they’d been standing at Sam’s shoulder. Castiel cocked his head inquisitively at the spot where Pai had been.  
  
“That was my advisor, Paimonia. Pai. They remind me a little of you, actually. Except, they know their place.”  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
  
A disgruntled bite entered Castiel’s tone. What Dean might call “bitchy". It tickled Sam that he’d offended the angel by comparing him to a demon.  
  
“Pai knows what they are. They know the way things are. They’re a demon and they know I’m their King. There’s nothing wrong with knowing your place, Cas. There’s so much freedom in it.”  
  
“Sounds more like slavery to me.”  
  
“Why? Because you don’t like it? Pai chooses to accept who they are. They choose to serve me.”  
  
“And what happens if they choose not to?”  
  
Sam lifted an eyebrow.  
  
“Don’t ask stupid questions.”  
  
Castiel’s lip curled.  
  
“Not much of a choice, then.”  
  
“Still a choice. Between living in denial of who and what you are, or giving yourself freely to it. It would have saved you so much grief, Cas, if you’d just accepted that.”  
  
The sound of colossal wings unfurling made Sam take a step backward and it infuriated him that the angel’s showboating had worked on him. For a brief moment he could see shadowy feathers filling his Hall before the image faded. He could still feel them, though, lurking on the edges of his perception. Castiel smirked and Sam saw that he had his odd little blade in his hand now.  
  
“Many have said much the same to me before, Sam Winchester. And every single one of them is dead.”  
  
Sam lifted his shoulder in a disinterested half-shrug, managing to keep his voice steady.  
  
“Yeah, well. They weren’t me.”  
  
Suddenly Dean’s gruff voice echoed in the cave’s expanse, ending Sam and Castiel’s pissing contest.  
  
“Cas? Cas, thank god you’re here.”  
  
There was a distressed, pleading undertone to Dean’s words that made Sam’s skin crawl. The older Winchester had appeared to the side of the Impala, a few feet from the King and the angel. Pai had not returned with him, Sam noted, but he wouldn’t punish the demon for that. After all, he hadn’t ordered Pai to come back after they’d delivered Sam’s message. Castiel turned from Sam without a second thought and the King seethed at Castiel’s disregard for his position and power.  
  
“Dean.”  
  
His brother’s name rolled off the angel’s tongue like a prayer. Like Dean was the most valuable thing to Castiel in the entire universe. He probably was, Sam thought bitterly. Dean’s eyes were green, but Castiel had to be able to see the howling black abyss inside him. He must know that Dean was a demon now, but the angel didn’t seem to care.  
  
“What took you so long? I prayed and prayed, where were you?”  
  
It was a trick. It had to be a trick. Sam could trust his brother. He had to be able to trust him, or he would be lost. Hell would be lost.  
  
“I couldn’t hear you, Dean. We- we can’t hear the prayers of the damned. I came as soon as I found out where you were. I’m sorry.”  
  
“Just get me out of here, please. Look what he did to me!”  
  
Dean gestured wildly at his emasculated groin, lifted his drooping cock to highlight the space underneath it. Castiel rounded on Sam, eyes glowing briefly with his fury.  
  
“Sam, how could you?”  
  
“Oh, what? Did I damage the merchandise? He’s mine, Cas. I can do as I please with what’s mine.”  
  
Castiel looked utterly disgusted. He turned back to Dean and took a few steps toward the demon, sword hand still engaged. Sam resisted the urge to attack the angel while he had left himself exposed. That would defeat the whole purpose of his plan. This wasn’t about a test of Sam’s obvious power, it was a test of his power over Dean. A test of Dean’s love. If Dean passed- _when_ Dean passed- they’d clear that last hurdle between them and they’d finally be free to be each other’s. Forever and ever amen.  
  
“I can save you, Dean. I can heal you.”  
  
Castiel took Dean’s right arm, ran his fingers over the Mark branded in the skin there. Sam choked down his possessive shout. He reminded himself again that Dean was the instrument of his power here. It was in Dean’s hands now.  
  
“But we have to leave Sam here. I don’t know how to help him. He partially purified himself with the Trials, but then he recontaminated himself with demon blood. I don’t know what that makes him. He can’t come back with us.”  
  
Right, as if that would ever happen. Sam smiled viciously. By the tentative way Castiel said it, he also knew it was an impossible suggestion as far as the man- demon- he loved was concerned. Dean stepped closer to the angel, intimately face-to-face.  
  
“Whatever, just please-”  
  
He kissed Castiel like he’d never kissed Sam. When the brothers kissed it was with uncontrollable passion, as if they would die if they weren’t as close as physically possible, hands groping and bodies colliding violently. It had been that way ever since their first time, a slightly drunken night a few months after their father’s death when they’d realized what they both wanted from the other. What their relationship had been missing. Sam had taken the lead, unlike their public face, but as he always did in the dark. Behind closed motel doors, Sam had been in charge.  
  
With Castiel, Dean was tender. His hands moved gently underneath the folds of the angel’s coat as he coaxed his tongue inside Castiel’s mouth. Castiel moaned, long and deep, his hands dropping to his sides. The Caverns trembled, spikes of rock falling from the ceiling, and Sam shook with his creation. Even if this was a trick- and it had better be a fucking trick- he was going to make Dean scream for it. For putting his mouth and his hands on that _thing_ like that. He was jealous, he realized, and not just because Dean seemed to be enjoying touching Castiel. He was jealous of the feelings Castiel had for Dean, too. That Dean, even as a demon, had inspired such devotion and need in a pure, immortal being not meant to feel anything at all.  
  
“Is that an angel sword in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”  
  
Dean broke the kiss with a sly grin. His hands stopped stroking inside the trench coat and Castiel growled his disapproval.  
  
“Whataya know? It’s both.”  
  
In a fluid motion Dean withdrew his hands and snatched Castiel’s silver blade from fingers that had slackened. Once the blade was grasped tightly in Dean’s hand, he shoved the angel as far away from him as he could. Normally, Castiel might not have budged an inch, but with the vulnerable state Dean’s ministrations had left him in Castiel stumbled a step backward. Sam couldn’t see the look on Castiel’s face, but the spiteful glee on Dean’s face as he brandished the weapon was a beautiful sight in itself.  
  
“I can’t believe you fell for that. _Again._ Cas, buddy, you gotta stop makin’ out with demons.”  
  
“Dean?”  
  
Dean’s eyes flicked to solid black and he puckered his lips in a mock kiss. Sam laughed with pride and relief.  
  
“I hate these formalities,” the King taunted. “But for the sake of good manners: Castiel, meet Dean Winchester, Sovereign Prince of Hell.”  
  
“You. You did this!”  
  
Castiel whirled on him with the sound of ethereal pinions rustling. His hands balled into fists and his face distorted with rancor. He charged at Sam with the force of a hurricane and Sam had the brief thought, before his brain shifted to combat mode, that he would finally get to see if he was stronger than an angel. He’d consider it training for when he finally faced off against Lucifer and Michael.  
  
“Don’t you fucking touch him!”  
  
Dean’s left hand shot out and buried itself in Castiel’s dark, windswept hair. He yanked down as hard as he could and Castiel crashed to the floor, landing on his back. Dean bent over him.  
  
“Don’t you dare blame Sam for this. I took the Mark of my own free will so I could kill Abaddon, and I knew it wouldn’t end happy. I chose this. Just like I chose Sam. Just like I always will.”  
  
Yes. Oh, yes. (Good boy.)  
  
Dean looked up at his brother and smiled coyly.  
  
“I love _you,_ Sam.”  
  
Sam’s heart swelled.  
  
“Don’t think you’re getting away with slutting it up over there. I’m still gonna punish you for kissing that thing.”  
  
Dean shrugged in acceptance.  
  
“Figured. Worth it, though.”  
  
He turned his attention back to the recumbent angel. Castiel hadn’t moved after Dean’s attack, stunned by his betrayal. Dean began an intonation in what sounded like Latin with that glorious voice of his. Sam was going to have to get Dean to whisper to him like that sometime while they fucked. The rich deepness of Dean’s chant, the way it rolled from his tongue, sent the Blood rushing to Sam’s cock and in moments he was fully hard.  
  
“ _-non relinquent!_ ”  
  
As Dean finished his incantation the angel screamed and Sam saw Castiel’s light wane. His wings disappeared from Sam’s awareness and the shining tendrils that spilled from his vessel retreated back inside. They condensed in an orb of dim light, flickering over Castiel’s heart. Castiel clutched at his chest, writhing on the limestone floor.  
  
“Dean! What did you do to me?”  
  
“Yeah, Dean,” Sam was fascinated. “What _did_ you do?”  
  
Dean looked up at his brother and answered with unrestrained pride.  
  
“One of Alastair’s. Angelic exorcism. I just fine-tuned it a little, reversed some of the words and stuff. He’s trapped in there, can’t access his grace. Thought it would make things easier.”  
  
“Dean,” Castiel moaned. The brothers ignored him.  
  
“Did you make that up on the fly?”  
  
“Yeah, when you sent Smoky to come get me I got inspired. That was okay, right?”  
  
He looked suddenly afraid that he hadn’t asked his King’s permission. Sam assuaged him with an admiring laugh.  
  
“Dean. You’re amazing.”  
  
Dean bit his bottom lip and scratched at the back of his head.  
  
“Aw, stop. I’m blushing.”  
  
Sam waved a hand at the impaired angel, now still and thankfully silent, wide eyes staring up at the ceiling and his face grimaced with pain.  
  
“He goin’ anywhere?”  
  
“Nah, not for awhile.”  
  
“Then come here.”  
  
Dean left Castiel’s side without a backward glance. When he got close enough, Sam pulled him in and kissed him savagely. He bit and sucked every trace of Castiel off his brother’s lips, rutting forcefully against Dean’s thigh. The angel blade clattered to the ground as Dean brought his leg conscientiously up between Sam’s to make it easier for his brother and Sam ground into it. It felt so fucking good. Sam groaned and pulled his lips away from Dean’s gorgeous mouth.  
  
“Say my name.”  
  
“Sam.”  
  
Just like a prayer. Like one of his chanted invocations.  
  
“Again.”  
  
“Sam.”  
  
“Tell me who you love.”  
  
“You. Sam.”  
  
“Again!”  
  
“I love you, Sam. Only you.”  
  
“Yes,” Sam sighed. “Now get on your knees, pretty baby, and profess your love unto me. Worship me. Worship what I took from you.”  
  
He leisurely stroked his cock as Dean lowered himself to his knees. Dean’s tongue licked at the tight bundle of Sam’s balls, tracing up the thin, velvety skin between them. He sucked one, then the other into his mouth and Sam’s breath hitched at the faith he was placing in his brother. Dean was reverently careful, no teeth, just his tongue swirling around the circumference of each sensitive organ. Sam came in a few minutes, covering his brother’s face with lines of white viscosity. Dean’s black eyes closed as in benediction. He released Sam’s balls, saliva dripping down his chin as he looked up at his King. Sam ruffled his hair.  
  
“Such a good boy. I love you so much, Dean.”  
  
His brother smiled beatifically.  
  
(And you saw everything that you had made, and behold, it was very good.)  
  
“Dean- ” Castiel croaked. “Dean, that’s not love. That’s not love!”  
  
Sam regarded Castiel with annoyance.  
  
“What would you know about love, huh? I mean, since you angels have been such stellar examples of it. So really, Cas, please tell me. What _is_ love?”  
  
“Baby, don’t hurt me,” Dean monotoned helpfully, wiping at his face and rising to his feet.  
  
“Guess I walked into that one,” Sam sighed exaggeratedly. He looked to his smartmouthed brother and inclined his head at Castiel.  
  
“He’s all yours.”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“You’re my Grand Inquisitor, Dean. So, inquisite. Here we are now, entertain us.”  
  
“Ugh, really? Nirvana?” Dean groaned, but he flashed a wicked smile at the captive angel. “Hear that, Cas? You’re all mine.”  
  
“Dean,” Castiel rolled away from the demon Winchester’s approach, scrambling on hands and knees along the cracks he had previously made in the floor to get to a better vantage point. “Dean, don’t.”  
  
Sam sat on his throne, long legs spread wide and shoulders resting against the seatback. He called the forgotten angel blade to him and twirled it in his hand, playing with it lazily as he watched Dean play with its owner.  
  
“Y’know, Cas. Not that I’m not grateful that you came to save us, but you really are a hypocrite.”  
  
Castiel had flipped onto his back and was attempting to stand. Sam saw his captive light flutter and he crashed back to the ground, pressing a hand over his heart with a hiss of pain. Dean was quickly closing the distance between them.  
  
“Remember when I ran all over Purgatory lookin’ for you? And then it turned out you didn’t wanna leave? So I wasted a whole year on you when I shoulda been finding a way back to Sam. Yeah, I’ll admit, that one was on me. Even if his highness here shoulda looked for me, too.”  
  
Sam decided to let that one slide for now. His brother had reached Castiel and the angel stared up at Dean in dismay.  
  
“Point is, did it every occur to you, Mr. Angel of the Lord, that we didn’t want to be saved either? We’re doin’ great here.”  
  
Dean leaned down, reaching for the lapels of the trench coat. Castiel’s leg shot out, smashing into Dean’s calves, and with a cry of surprise Dean was swept down on his back.  
  
“Yeah,” Castiel forced out through clenched teeth. He was still struggling to rise. “You look like you’re doing so well, Dean. I wonder, what else is Sam planning to cut off? Who’s ‘junkless’ now?”  
  
Dean nimbly rolled to a squatting position and pounced on the angel. He grabbed him by the front of his hair and pounded Castiel’s head twice into the pale bedrock. The stone split further and blood trickled red into the cracks.  
  
“Well, you know. I guess nothing’s perfect. You sons of bitches never could accept that.”  
  
Dean sprang to his feet, still holding Castiel by the hair. Castiel grappled two-handed with Dean’s wrist, but he was weakened and dazed. Dean easily dragged the struggling angel to the Impala and threw him in front of it. He landed prone in a heap at Sam’s feet. Sam was almost in awe of his big brother. He would never have been able to defeat Castiel on his own. The angel was too strong, physically. But emotionally, well, Castiel had let himself develop feelings for Sam’s brother. He’d let down his guard around Dean, made himself weak. Sam wouldn’t begrudge him for that, he supposed. He could relate. Dean was so beautiful, so special, he couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting him. But he was Sam’s. He’d chosen to be Sam’s. Castiel would just have to accept that.  
  
“Hey, Sam. You wanna help hold him down with your demon-kinesis or whatever?”  
  
“I can’t, Dean,” Sam admitted. “It doesn’t work that well on angels.”  
  
(Yet.)  
  
Now that Castiel was all-but defeated he could concede that he’d been bluffing for most of their encounter.  
  
“Hmm, woulda been nice to know that before,” Dean grumbled. “Old-fashioned way it is. Hand me that thing, would you?”  
  
Sam gave Dean the angel blade. Crouching, the demon used it to slit up the back of Castiel’s coat, tearing it in pieces off his subdued body and tossing them away. He ripped Castiel’s clothes off like paper and turned the naked angel over on his back. Sam had hoped, and he fully acknowledged how stupid and petty this was, but he’d hoped that Castiel would be poorly endowed below the waist. Even soft, however, Castiel was more than adequate. Oh, well.  
  
Dean stretched Castiel’s arms over his head, crossed his wrists, and drove Castiel’s sword through the sinew and radial bones. He pushed it deep into the floor until only the silver hilt was protruding in a mocking half-crucifixion. Blood spurted while Castiel screamed and convulsed.  
  
“Aw, what’s the matter, Cas? I thought you’d appreciate the symbolism.”  
  
Castiel abruptly stopped struggling. He looked up at his tormentor with hurt and horror. Dean smiled at him.  
  
“I only wish Jimmy was still in there with you,” Dean stroked Castiel’s quivering flank. “Could have been two for the price of one.”  
  
Sam had to agree. He would have so enjoyed hearing Dean make that milquetoast little bitch wail. Maybe he’d have made a better demon than he had a man. Too bad he’d already vacated the premises years ago.  
  
“Dean,” Castiel whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”  
  
“Oh, get off your high horse. It’s okay to blame me, Cas. It’s okay to hate me. For fuck’s sake, _I_ hate me most of the time.”  
  
“Never. I’ll never hate you. I lo-”  
  
Dean punched the angel in the stomach. He gasped and shuddered, trying to double over with the pain but thwarted by his crucified wrists.  
  
“That’s enough of that. Now, let’s see if I can’t change your mind about hating me.”  
  
Dean looked around and found a particularly intimidating piece of broken stalactite. It was about the length of his forearm, three times as thick, and came to a jagged point at the tip. Castiel eyed it suspiciously.  
  
“Awesome, this is perfect,” Dean grinned. “Hold still, baby. I wanna make our first time as good for you as it’s gonna be for me.”  
  
He spread Castiel’s squirming thighs and forced the pointed rock inside the angel. Castiel threw back his head and bellowed, but with his contained grace it did nothing but reverberate in the Hall. His pierced hands struggled futilely against his blade. Sam’s breathing quickened and he leaned forward, engrossed in the atrocity before him. The angel’s anus and rectum tore open immediately. Blood, guts, and fecal matter coated the rock as Dean brutally moved it in and out, driving it deeper with every thrust. Eventually, Castiel stopped yelling. He crumpled on the ground, wet eyes watching Dean’s face as the demon raped him. A single tear escaped, trickling to the floor and disappearing in the dust.  
  
“I’ve never seen an angel cry before,” Sam commented.  
  
“I have.”  
  
Dean didn’t elaborate. He continued his violation of Castiel.  
  
“I’m kind of a big deal down here, Cas,” Dean told the angel conversationally. “I took Alastair’s old job. Sam calls me his ‘Grand Inquisitor.’ Not to brag, but I’m fuckin’ great at it.”  
  
He pulled the rock out and paused before thrusting it back in.  
  
“You wanna know one of my favorite things? Sometimes, when I’m really getting into it with a soul, kinda like I’m doin’ with you right now, I tell them about you. About how you came for me. You should see how wide their eyes get, well, the ones that still have eyes at that point. ‘Who knows,’ I tell ‘em. ‘Maybe there’s an angel on his way for you, too.’”  
  
Dean leaned over Castiel’s face, gave him a chaste kiss on the lips.  
  
“Hope is the best torture.”  
  
He pushed the rock back inside Castiel’s gaping wound and the angel groaned.  
  
“Hey, shh, I know. I wanted to do this myself, but you know. I got some trouble gettin’ it up these days. This is still good for you, though, right? You’ll tell me if it’s too rough for you?”  
  
Sam knew that Castiel was in tremendous pain, but the proud angel refused to play Dean’s game. His mouth was set defiantly, even as soft cries escaped from the corners of his pursed lips. The true, cruel elegance of this lay not in the torture itself but in the fact that it was Dean doing it. Interrogation, defilement, and pain were things an angel could handle. Betrayal was a tougher pill to swallow. And the way Dean had scorned Castiel’s love and flung it back in his face, that was what would ultimately destroy the angel. Angels were beings of fellowship, never meant to be alone. Castiel had forsaken his family for the Winchesters, for the faint hope that Dean would love him in the same way, and it had all been for nothing. Sam looked to the blade holding him in place, the only object in Hell that could kill Castiel. He would never use it, and neither would Dean. For an eternal being there were things so much worse than death. They could bring him to the point of death over and over and over again, but he would never die. No matter how much he longed for it.  
  
Dean pulled the gore-caked stalactite out of what was left of Castiel’s lower half and threw it to the side. Castiel watched him anxiously, wondering what Dean’s new torment would be. Dean moved to Castiel’s bleeding wrists and covered his hands in the angel’s blood. Then Dean moved to Sam’s side. Castiel’s eyes followed him all the way.  
  
“You thought you’d come in here, guns blazing, and rescue me? You wanted to take me away from Sam?”  
  
Dean grasped Sam’s right hand and smeared Castiel’s blood all over his palm and fingers. Making sure Castiel was still watching, Dean pressed Sam’s open hand to his upper left arm. A bloody handprint remained when he pulled it away, an approximation of the former burnt imprint of Castiel’s hand that had resided there before the angel had taken it away in the aftermath of the first battle at Stull.  
  
“I thought you’d have realized by now. Sam is all I’ve ever wanted. We’re friends, Cas, good friends, but Sam? Sam is my everything.”  
  
(No other gods before you.)  
  
Sam smiled and pulled Dean into his lap, fitting Dean between his legs and pressing his chest into Dean’s back. He kissed all over the back of Dean’s neck, using his teeth occasionally and lapping up the blood he’d drawn. Dean gave a satisfied sigh, rubbing himself against Sam’s cock.  
  
“Warm me up,” Sam whispered in Dean’s ear, giving his shoulders an easy shove. Dean slid off the bench, turned on his knees, and took Sam’s cockhead into his mouth. Sam let Dean do all the work. He sat completely still, content to let his brother lick and suck while he observed Castiel. The maimed angel stared at the brothers with a hollow look in his eyes. Sam sneered and winked at him.  
  
“That’s enough, Dean. Get back up here.”  
  
Dean crawled back up on the seat between Sam’s legs. He straddled his brother, combining their lips so ferociously their teeth knocked together. His hands tangled in the strands of Sam’s long hair. Sam thrust his dripping cock between Dean’s legs, grinding vigorously against the space where Dean’s balls had once been, his glans bumping against Dean’s softness. He was going to make this so good for Dean, Sam decided. He was going to make Dean writhe and moan on his cock in front of Castiel. He willed Dean’s passage to make itself wet and slick. Dean’s black eyes flew open and he pulled his head back with a small huff of surprise.  
  
“Jesus, Sam! Warn a guy first.”  
  
“Is that any way to say thank you?”  
  
Dean raised his eyebrows.  
  
“Oh, excuse me. Thank you so much, your highness.”  
  
“Sarcasm. Lowest form of wit.”  
  
“But the highest form of intelligence,” Dean smirked. “What? You ain’t the only one in this family who reads.”  
  
Sam kissed him again to make him shut up. He grabbed Dean’s hips and lifted, sliding his cock into tight, warm wetness as Dean settled back down astride his brother. His thighs strained and flexed as he rode Sam, the younger Winchester thrusting upward to help. One hand clamped tightly on Dean’s flank while the other moved between Dean’s legs. He caressed Dean’s smoothness, starting from his taint and traveling up the underside of his limp cock, over and over, painting the space in the remnants of Castiel’s blood. The older Winchester groaned hoarsely.  
  
“Oh god- oh god- oh, Sam!”  
  
His sterile come streamed over Sam’s hand, but Sam was nowhere near done.  
  
“Let’s see how much you got in you.”  
  
Sam fucked Dean with a purpose, holding off his own completion until he’d finished giving Dean his pleasure. Dean came an impressive three more times, his shriveled cock dripping copiously, moaning and pounding himself on Sam’s cock just as Sam had imagined it. Occasionally Sam would look to their mangled spectator on the floor. Large blue eyes full of sad resentment gazed back every time.  
  
The fourth time Dean climaxed he grimaced and came dry. He closed his eyes and stopped riding Sam, limbs heavy and brain overcome by the bliss radiating through him. He panted, blood and perspiration rolling off him in the heat of the Caverns.  
  
“Not yet, gorgeous,” Sam encouraged. “I have to finish now.”  
  
Dean began his rhythm once more with a mild groan of complaint. Sam held off as long as he could, but there were forces at work beyond even his control. The way he’d made his brother feel inside, so fucking glorious. The sight of Dean’s sweating, rapturous face. The memory of the noises he had made getting off. The thought of Castiel helplessly observing it all. They were all too much for Sam and he soon came with a deep, lingering shout. The Hall of Giants rumbled and shook as Dean collapsed in Sam’s arms.  
  
“Good boy. Such a good boy.”  
  
Dean looked over his shoulder at Castiel.  
  
“See, Cas? My boy takes care of me.”  
  
Castiel didn’t respond. He just kept staring at the brothers as they sat united and recovered their faculties. Once they had, Sam cleaned them of the blood, sweat, slick, and come. Dean pointed to the angel.  
  
“What are you gonna do with him?”  
  
“That’s up to you, Dean. Like I told you, he’s all yours.”  
  
“Aw, really?” Dean’s eyes were shining. “I can keep him?”  
  
“Only if you promise to feed him, walk him, and pick up after him,” Sam said with fake sternness.  
  
“Oh, I promise,” Dean licked his lips with anticipation. “I can’t wait to debrief an angel.”  
  
“You whore,” Sam swatted the back of Dean’s head playfully.  
  
“Ha, ha. Real mature, your majesty.”  
  
Dean rose from Sam’s lap and knelt by Castiel’s head.  
  
“Hey, Cas, buddy. Guess what? I get to keep you. You’re gonna be my special toy. I’m gonna find out what makes you tick. I’m gonna find out what makes an angel break.”  
  
“I’m not afraid of you,” Castiel spat through strained vocal chords.  
  
“Maybe not,” Dean shrugged. “But I’m gonna get inside your head and find out what you _are_ afraid of.”  
  
Castiel flinched as Dean brushed dark hair back from his face.  
  
“And I don’t think any of your dick brothers or sisters are comin’ for you this time. Think you’ve burned all those bridges.”  
  
Castiel closed his eyes, face stricken with guilt.  
  
“So I’m gonna be the one who,” Dean managed to get his already gravelly voice into a lower register, “‘Gripped you tight and lowered you into Perdition.’”  
  
He chuckled sadistically.  
  
“It’s an ambitious goal, I know. But I’m gonna turn an angel into a demon.”  
  
“That will never happen,” Castiel snarled in defiant bravado and his bound light fluctuated violently. Because that was what you said when you were an eons-old celestial creature threatened with being reformed into the antithesis of what you were. No one in the throne room, not the King, the demon, nor the angel himself, believed the words.  
  
“Bela!”  
  
Dean’s shout brought the Queen of Crossroads immediately. She appeared across the Hall astride one of her hellhounds, the other conspicuously missing. She dug her heels into the hound’s sides and it trotted obediently forward until they were directly in front of the grotesque tableau before Sam’s throne. She gave a seated half-bow to Sam and inclined her head at Dean as she addressed him.  
  
“Yes, my Lord?”  
  
“Take this mess down to my interrogation room, would ya?”  
  
He waved his hand over Castiel. Bela leaned closer with morbid curiosity, her red eyes gleaming.  
  
“My Lord, is that a-?”  
  
“Oh, don’t worry. I clipped his wings. Although, you should still be careful. He’s a pistol. Ain’t ya, Cas? Anyway, take him to my room and tell Karna to prep him but not to start without me.”  
  
He grinned at Castiel.  
  
“I wanna be there every step of the way for this one.”  
  
Castiel shuddered.  
  
“Dean. Please.”  
  
Dean put his finger over Castiel’s lips.  
  
“Shh, none of that now, baby. Not until we’ve started the good stuff.”  
  
Bela gave her hound a shrill command and it bent forward and took Castiel in its mouth. Dean didn’t even blanch at how close it came to him. Castiel gave a small cry as the hound ripped him from the blade pinning him to the floor, leaving bits of bone and flesh clinging to the silver spike. The dog worried him brutally, shaking the angel like a rag doll. Droplets of blood sprayed everywhere as Bela dug her heels in again and turned the hellhound to go.  
  
“Hey,” Sam called in mild interest, casually wiping a streak of blood from his cheek with the back of his hand. “Where’s your other one?”  
  
Bela looked over her shoulder at her King. What remained of her lips quirked upward.  
  
“Freddo? He’s on Earth. Hunting.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
Sam waved a hand in dismissal. Bela, Lion, and Castiel disappeared. Sam stared at the spot where they’d been for a few seconds, thinking. It was like a weight had been lifted from his chest. Questions and doubts that he’d had for years had just been resolved almost entirely in his favor. He looked to the dark stains at his feet where his brother still knelt. Dean yanked the angel sword from the limestone and held it out to his King.  
  
“You wanna keep this?”  
  
“Probably should. Be good to have in case any of the angels actually do come for him.”  
  
“Yeah. But they won’t.”  
  
Dean sounded so sure he made Sam believe it. He took the proffered blade and sent it away to the in-between space where he kept Ruby’s knife and other things of value. As he looked at his empty hand he saw the crimson stripe of Castiel’s blood on the back and was struck with a thought. He brought his hand to his mouth and tentatively brushed it with his tongue.  
  
Sam almost retched. Castiel’s blood was disgusting. He was sure the face he made as he choked and spat was not very Kingly. Dean looked at him in amusement.  
  
“So, angel blood not doin’ it for you?”  
  
“No,” Sam scowled, scraping his teeth over his tongue and spitting. “And wipe that smile off your face. I’m still going to punish you for kissing him.”  
  
“Aw, can’t it wait ‘til later? I’m beat, Sam. You took a lot outta me.”  
  
Sam considered his brother still kneeling at his feet. Dean’s face was still flushed and his chest moved up and down with his heavy breathing. He looked endearingly at Sam and he was so beautiful. So beautiful. And all for Sam. By his own admission, by his own choice, despite everything. All for Sam.  
  
“Don’t think this is gonna be a regular thing,” Sam warned, patting the seat next to him. Dean climbed obediently on to it. He tucked his legs underneath him and sat sideways, just looking at Sam.  
  
“Course not. Wouldn’t dream of it.”  
  
Dean’s eyes closed and he leaned his head against the seatback.  
  
“You gonna fall asleep?”  
  
“Demons don’t sleep,” Dean mumbled, eyes still shut. “Sometimes I wish I still could, though.”  
  
“Well, ask and you shall receive.”  
  
The front seat reclined at Sam’s silent command. Dean stretched himself over it on his stomach, pillowing his head with his arms. Sam shifted to sit almost protectively over him.  
  
“Thanks, Sam.”  
  
“You earned it.”  
  
Dean smiled as he started to drift off.  
  
“You wanna join me?”  
  
Sam considered the request.  
  
“I probably shouldn’t. Someone should keep watch, make sure we aren’t attacked.”  
  
“Dude. Who’s gonna attack us?”  
  
(He speaks true. No demon would dare.)  
  
Sam lay himself half on top of his brother, throwing an arm over Dean’s shoulders. Dean pressed himself into Sam’s embrace and gave a sigh of satisfaction. Before he was completely out he made one last, quiet request.  
  
“Hey, Sam? Can you, uh, can you make it so I don’t dream?”  
  
“Whatever you want, Dean.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
And then he was asleep. Sam remained awake and alert for a long while, eyes open, listening to Dean’s measured breaths. His mind raced. Could his brother really do it? Turn Castiel into a demon? If he could, and Sam had the utmost faith in Dean’s abilities, it would change everything. They could get more angels and then- then they could have anything they wanted. Heaven, Earth, Purgatory. Anything. Nothing and no one could stand in their way.  
  
(Because God is dead or God doesn’t care and you are truly free, Sam Winchester. King of Hell.)  
  
Sam allowed himself to sleep. Unlike Dean, he did dream. When he woke later, still curled around the reposed form of his brother, he would believe it to be one of the psychic dreams he’d used to have years ago when he was young and naive and fully human.  
  
In his vision, Sam was sitting on his cloven Impala throne and Dean was sitting at his right hand. Paimonia stood deferentially to Sam’s left, Bela and her hellhounds behind Dean’s right. They surveyed the Hall of Giants, grown conspicuously larger and filled with cheering demons as far as the eye could see. It had to have been a long time in the future. Because crouched in pure obeisance by Dean’s feet was a being of perverse power and beauty that had once been something so bright and so holy but whose descent into the twisted, leering creature he had become had begun long ago. Not when he’d unsuccessfully tried to save his unwilling Beloved and his brother-King from Hell for the final time, but even before that. Begun when the former seraph had been the first to find and rescue a righteous man from the Pit on September 18, Anno Domini 2008.  
  
Dream-Sam was suffused with pride and joy as he looked over his subjects, all filled with the fear and the love of Him. Trembling in anticipation of their King’s victory. He reached out for Dean’s hand, squeezed it possessively. His brother squeezed back. The Blood sang to him.  
  
(You are power and you are pain. All praise be to Sam.)  
  
It was Anno Domin- and you know what? Actually, that designation was outdated and woefully inadequate. Time had little meaning to Hell or its King. Soon to be King of, well, everything.  
  
Forever and ever amen.


End file.
